Behind enemy lines

Infiltration of Western police and intelligence agencies

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Stephan Blancke

https://stephan.blancke.de/

Juni 2018

Brussels

All named and represented persons below are not necessarily involved in

illegal acts.

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IntroductionOn 28th August 2017, special police forces raided various places in EasternGermany. These raids did not target Islamic extremists but a network of so-calledpreppers with links to right-wing terrorism. According to various news reports,suspects and witnesses cannot only be found among members of the right-wingpopulist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), but also among members of thepolice and reservists of the Federal Armed Forces (Bundeswehr: BW). In a statementissued by the German Armed Forces Reservists Association (Reservistenverband) on16th December 2017, the Association generally prohibits joining the German right-wing extremist party NPD and, since 2010, has excluded 35 members after beingidentified as right-wing extremists. Only a few months prior to the statement,information of a right-wing network within the BW surfaced when a soldier wasarrested. This scandal caused great political unrest and investigations are ongoing. InOctober 2006, the FBI Counterterrorism Division in the Intelligence Assessment“White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement” had warned that “the primarythreat from infiltration or recruitment arises from the areas of intelligence collectionand exploitation, which can lead to investigative breaches and can jeopardize thesafety of law enforcement sources and personnel.” To the day, these cases highlightthe security risk caused by terrorists, extremists, and criminals infiltrating the policeand intelligence services.

Then as nowThe threat of an indirect infiltration was already acknowledged in the annual report ofthe Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt fürVerfassungsschutz: BfV) in 1983, which points to adversarial intelligence agenciescommissioning investigative agencies and information bureaus in Germany. Quiterightly, the report explains that many private detectives used to be members ofsecurity agencies or the BW, and often still have access to their previous authorities.According to Bishop and Mallie’s “The Provisional IRA”, published in 1987, theProvisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) uses moles in Northern Irish tax authoritiesand social welfare offices in order to access information such as police officers’ homeaddresses. When Brendan Anderson published “Joe Cahill: A Life in the IRA” in 2002,the PIRA’s former member Cahill claimed that the organisation used to have a sourceinside the office of the Minister of Home Affairs between 1969 and 1972. Apparently,this source provided information on the British Army’s Operation Demetrius in 1971,which was targeted at the PIRA. In 2005, the Council on Foreign Relations describedthe infiltration of Iraqi forces in three categories: hard-core fighters, sympathizers aswell as coerced and intimidated security forces. Back then, the applicants’ vettingprocess was criticised for being insufficient and rushed. In a report from July 2006,the BBC spoke of al Qaeda supporters’ efforts to infiltrate the MI5. However, thesewere “weeded out during a six- to eight-month vetting process”, thus Britishauthorities were able to invest much more time than Iraqi authorities back in 2005.

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Other cases are a lot less clear, for it is not always possible to prove whether theinfiltration was aided by a general official support or individual supporters in keypositions. Years after the terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzaniaon 7th August 1998, trials against the Republic of Sudan, and others, were pushedfor by the bombings’ victims and their families. One of the documents from 28thNovember 2011 (Case 1:08-cv-01380-JDB) reads: “The Sudanese intelligenceservice had a delegation office that provided services to Bin Laden and al Qaeda…(They) coordinated with al Qaeda operatives to vet the large numbers of Islamicmilitants entering the country to ensure that they were not seeking to infiltrate binLaden’s organization on behalf of a foreign intelligence service.” Hence, members ofal Qaeda were placed within an organisation of the intelligence service in order toimplement their own counterintelligence.

First covered by the Basler Zeitung in April 2017, a current case in Switzerlandillustrates how difficult it can be to provide evidence and differentiate certain casesfrom traditional espionage. A member of the Basel Police, both of Turkish descentand a supporter of Erdogan, attracted the attention of the Swiss Federal IntelligenceAgency (Schweizer Nachrichtendienst des Bundes: NDB) in the summer of 2016 dueto various nationalist, pro-Erdogan statements. Furthermore, he is thought to havesupported the Erdogan-affiliated Union of European-Turkish Democrats (UETD) byproviding access to a non-public meeting room of the Basel Police, proof of whichcan be seen in a photograph by the Basler Zeitung from 22nd April 2017. In theirreport from 14th February 2018, the newspaper claims that this man retrieved around870 items of personal data from police computers without being authorised to do so.However, spying accusations were dropped, since part of the data was in factrequested for as part of business and relations queries. The case is still beingdiscussed and it remains unclear whether data was passed on to unauthorised thirdparties or not.

Police as targetFor obvious reasons, facilities of police and justice have always been of great interestto politically or criminally motivated individuals. There are various sections within thepolice, which are less secluded but have access to sensitive information, such as theaddresses of private individuals or police officers. Such sections can be found inregistration offices or with bailiffs. Nevertheless, most reports show that there was notargeted infiltration in the sense of a planned transfer of individuals into the police.Instead, later circumstances led to such behaviour: personal problem such as debts,friends in organisations such as Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMCG), a change inpolitical conviction, or simply boredom and naiveté. In some of these cases,traditional espionage intersects with an exploitation of insiders who pass politicallyexploitable, restricted information on to third parties out of pure greed. In October2004, the BBC reported on Ghazi Kassim, who had been a member of theMetropolitan Police for many years and had been selling information on dissidentsand Islamists to Ali al-Shamarani, an intelligence officer at the embassy of Saudi

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Arabia. The report cites Judge Peter Rook: “Your greed had the possibility of puttingpeople at risk”, a euphemism for the very real danger of infiltration. In January 2018,the Dutch News covered a story on a policeman who is thought to have earned tensof thousands of Euros by selling confidential information to criminals. The reportdetails that the accused, who was already arrested back in September 2015, “wasone of more than 100 police staff who were given access to confidential files despitefailing the screening checks.” Money, “brotherhood” and a “masculine” environmentof OMCGs repeatedly attract officers to whistle-blow confidential operations. Despitethe great loyalty of most officials, individual cases highlight the permeability of somevetting processes.

In December 2007, the Badische Zeitung wrote about an officer of the GermanFederal Police (Bundespolizei), who last worked with French police and customs inKehl. This individual had passed information on to a friend affiliated with the HellsAngels, including information on an important operation and telephone surveillance.The gang’s approaches required immediate action: Police officers in Berlin areprohibited from joining OMCGs, which was supported by a court order from 17thMarch 2011 (VG 36 L 62.11). It is worth pointing to the formation of “Gunfighters MC”in December 2005, which, according to their website (http://www.gunfightersmc.com),is a club solely consisting of law enforcement officers: “We are National and anInternational 100 percent law enforcement only club.” In photos, members of the clubpose with a symbol that is remarkably similar to the “1%”-sign of criminal clubs.

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Worldwide chapters are said to include: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany,England, France, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Nigeria, Scotland,Somalia, Spain, Switzerland, and the USA. Members of such clubs are distinguishedby their looks, which resemble the ones of well-known OMCGs. Australian policeofficers were investigated on account of their membership of the club and in May2016, Daily Mail Australia quoted the former Western Australia Police CommissionerKarl O’Callaghan: “Membership of such a club has the potential to be in breach of ourcode of conduct.” The only German chapter is in Koblenz and its Facebook page isdecorated with the federal eagle:

The question remains, whether police officers who publicly pose as intimidatingrockers can be seen as a form of infiltration. In any case, performances of such clubsare likely to affect the public’s sense of security.

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As cited by ABC News in August 2010, the former Australian Crime Commission CEOJohn Lawler stated on OMCGs’ infiltration: “They'll have an array of capacities andlikely people within senior levels of business and government who have beencorrupted.” Other gangs such as MS 13 also try to gain access to major authoritiesand the military. The National Gang Threat Assessment 2011, issued by the USNational Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC), emphasises that “gangs encouragemembers, associates, and relatives to obtain law enforcement, judiciary, or legalemployment in order to gather information on rival gangs and law enforcementoperations. Gang infiltration of the military continues to pose a significant criminalthreat, as members of at least 53 gangs have been identified on both domestic andinternational military installations.” Already in January 2010, the NGIC listedcountless examples and methods of infiltration in their intelligence report “GangsInfiltrating Law Enforcement and Correctional Agencies”. Furthermore, the reporthighlights a qualitative difference, which could be relevant to European analyses:“African-American and Hispanic gangs appear more likely to engage in deliberateattempts to infiltrate law enforcement and correctional agencies, while Whitesupremacist groups and OMCGs appear to more commonly exploit their family,friends, and associates’ civilian employment with law enforcement.” Previous effortsto correlate a susceptibility to corruption - which in turn facilitates infiltration - withcertain ethnic affiliations, have proven problematic. In 2006, The Guardian reportedon a classified study by the Metropolitan Police, which was commissioned by theDirectorate of Professional Standards: “The document was written as an attempt toinvestigate why complaints of misconduct and corruption against Asian officers are10 times higher than against their white colleagues.” A similar political debate wassparked in Germany in November 2017, when numerous clues and complaints onmembers of criminal Arab families infiltrating the Berlin Police surfaced in the media.In official statements issued by political representatives, these claims were dismissedas xenophobic, but statements from police officers and chief executives, however,support such claims. In an interview published by the Focus Magazin on 4thFebruary 2017, the problem of large Arab families being entangled with the police issaid to have been known for a long time.

Especially with regard to prison intelligence, European security authorities seethemselves confronted with problems that result from the agitation of imprisonedIslamists, i.e. an informal infiltration. In this case, inmates constitute risk factors thatare brought into the institution. On the basis of their religious and ideologicalmotivation, such individuals influence fellow inmates. Politically, this is a verysensitive subject and Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and senior Home Officeofficial, states in The Spectator in April 2017: “We were told on countless occasionsthat prison officers did not confront hateful ideas on the landings for fear of beingaccused of being racist by Muslim prisoners.” Common criminals who are looking togain access to prisons through job vacancies also pose a great risk. The “Handbookon the Management of High-Risk Prisoners”, issued by the United Nations Office on

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Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in 2016, reads: “Care should also be taken to ensure thatnew staff are not members of criminal gangs or associated with organized crime andbeing used to infiltrate the prison… The selection process should test the applicant’smotivation, including a psychological test, where possible.”

Career aspiration: secret agentInfiltrations have repeatedly targeted intelligence agencies, though this appears tohappen less frequently. On his way to the airport in the summer of 2017, a Kurdishtaxi driver told the author that not only did his brother-in-law work on the building siteof the Federal Intelligence Agency (Bundesnachrichtendienst: BND), but he alsospoke about various technical problems on the site. This seemingly harmless storyillustrates the issue of employing and vetting subcontractors, for builders who aredeliberately placed on highly sensitive building sites can access valuable informationand potentially sabotage projects. Commercial analysts can also cause greatdamage within intelligence agencies. The most popular example is whistle-blowerEdward Snowden, but similar cases are no exception. They all result in confidentialinformation being passed on and, in extreme cases, pose a threat to nationalsecurity. In March 2017, Reuters reported on CIA contractors being the likely causeof recent leaks of confidential, classified documents. The report cites an officialsource, according to which “one major security problem was that the number ofcontractors with access to information with the highest secrecy classification has‘exploded’ because of federal budget constraints.” So far, there have only beenspeculations that whistle-blowers such as Snowden were used by adversarialintelligence agencies to infiltrate the NSA.

A rather “exotic” infiltration surfaced with the unmasking of a German-Spanish fatherof four, who secretly converted to the Islam in 2014 and started working as an agentfor the BfV in 2016. According to various news reports, he first made online contactwith Islamists the same year. He not only sent them confidential service andobservation schedules but is also thought to have prepared a serious act of violentsubversion, as reported by Der Spiegel in July 2017. This was probably planned as aterrorist attack on the BfV building, but could be averted after the suspect wascontacted by an online undercover agent from the BfV. The media highlighted thebizarre fact that the accused had used the same pseudonym in Islamist chatroomsas in his previous acting career in gay porn. His arrest warrant has since beenrepealed and in November 2016, the Washington Post points to the fact that “thosewho have interviewed the suspect say he may have been mentally ill, and perhapseven had multiple personalities.” Despite the remarkable turn this case has taken,questions must be raised about a major intelligence agency’s vetting process, whichis central in light of the terrorist threat that Germany and Europe are confronted with.

OutlookThe infiltrations described in this article usually result in the loss of information,critical media coverage as well as debates in parliament. A very potent kind of danger

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is posed by extremists who successfully infiltrate federal security structures.Weapons and uniforms are known to fascinate right-wing extremists and there is along tradition of terrorist attacks planned or carried out by clandestine, nationaliststructures that form within federal organisations. Examples are the so-calledOrganisation Armée Secrète (OAS), a group within the French military that fought deGaulles’ Algerian policy by means of bombings, the Italian organisation PropagandaDue (P2) of the 70s and 80s, with various members working in key positions withinintelligence agencies, police and military, as well as the Deep State in Turkey, whichkeeps surfacing in the form of right-wing factions and conspirators such as the so-called Ergenekon Organisation of the late 90s. German authorities are currentlyfocusing on a right-wing network with members coming mainly from the military butalso the police. In December 2017, Der Spiegel reported on the officer FrancoAlbrecht, who was arrested when he tried to collect a weapon he had previouslyhidden at the airport in Vienna. He successfully registered with German authorities asa Syrian refugee back in 2016, which was probably linked to his planned attacks onrefugees as well as left-wing politicians and activists. In addition to this, there werereports on firing practice, the hoarding of guns and ammunition as well as an intensenetworking with like-minded preppers, among which police officers and soldiers wereidentified. In March 2018, Deutsche Welle stated that so-called Reichsbürger -individuals or groups who reject the legitimacy of the modern German state - caneven be found in various public authorities. Less attention has been drawn toinfiltration efforts from left-wing extremist groups, such as the Marxistische Gruppe(MG), which was described in detail in a publication by the German Federal Ministryof the Interior (Bundesministerium des Innern: BMI) in 1991.

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For decades, this group was known as the largest communist, cult-like organisationand is thought to have infiltrated a number of major ministries. The fear of infiltrationby left-wing groups, sponsored by the East Bloc intelligence agencies, waspermanently seen as a danger in the West – in some cases for good reasons. Andstill today a few people from those former communist front organisations are workingin political and academic parties and institutions in Germany. In the brochure from1986 the BMI published this graph:

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KFAZ Komitee fijr Frieden, Abrüstung und Zusammenarbeit(Von der DKP beeinflußte Organisation; Aufgaben: Mobilisierung vonNichtkommunisten fiir Zusammenarbeit mit Kommunisten; Unterstüt-zung der sowjetischen „Friedenspolitik“. Vorbereitung von „Frieden-saktionen“ durch das „Büro“, in dem orthodoxe Kommunisten dieentscheidenden Funktionen ausüben)

Komsomol Leninistischer Kommunistischer Jugendverband der SowjetunionKP Kommunistische ParteiKPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (1956 verboten)KPdSU Kommunistische Partei der SowjetunionMSB Marxistischer Studentenbund Spartakus

(Nebenorganisation der DKP)NGOs Nichtstaatliche Organisationen

(,.Non Governmental Organization“ der UNO)RGW Rat fiir Gegenseitige WirtschaftshilfeSDAJ, Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterjugend

› j (Nebenorganisation der DKP)SED Sozialistische Einheitspanei Deutschlands (DDR)SEW Sozialistische Einheitspaıtei West-BerlinsSIVSAJ Unteroganisation des WBDJSJV-KL Sozialistischer Jugendverband Karl Liebknechtsowjetisches Sowjetisches Komitee zum Schutze des FriedensFriedens- (Massenorganisation zur Mobilisierung der sowjetischenkomitee J Bevölkerung fiir die „Friedenspolitik der Sowjetunion“, Mitglied

des WFR)UZ „Unsere Zeit“, Zentralorgan der DKPVDJ Vereinigung Demokratischer Juristen in der Bundesrepublik Deutsch-

land und Berlin (West) e.V. (Auf Initiative der DKP gegründet. Mitar-beit von Kommunisten im Bundesvorstand. Als „Sektion“ der sowje-tisch gesteuerten „Internationalen Vereinigung Demokratischer Juri-sten“ angeschlossen)

VN Vereinte NationenVVN-BdA Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Nazi-Regimes - Bund der Antifaschi-

sten (Von der DKP beeinflußte Organisationen; engagiert im „Frie-denskampf“. Mitglieder müssen entschieden jeglichem Anti-Kommunismus und Anti-Sowjetismus entgegentreten)

WBDJ Weltbund Demokratischer Jugend (Einwirkungsorganisation)WFR Weltfriedensrat (Einwirkungsorganisation)WFW Weltföderation der Wissenschaftler (Einwirkungsorganisation)WGB Weltgewerkschaftsbund (Einwirkungsorganisation)

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Abkürzungen/Erläuterungen

Bund demokratischer Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler e.V.Bureau Intemationale pour le Tourisme et les Echanges de la Jeunesse (Inter-nationales Büro fiír Tourismus und Jugendaustausch; Unterorganisation desWBDJ)Berliner Konferenz Europäischer Katholiken (siehw WFR)Comité International des Mouvements des Enfants et des Adolescents (Kin-derorganisation des WBDJ) _Christliche Friedenskonferenz (siehe WFR)Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft - Vereinigte KriegsdienstgegnerDemokratische Fraueninitiative(Maßgebliche Mitarbeit von Kommunistinnen und Funktionärimıen 'DKP-beeinflußter Organisationen im „Zentralen Arbeitskreis“. (Aktionsschwer-punkt: „Friedenskampf“ “)Deutsche Friedens-Union I(Tragende Rolle in der kommunisitschen Bündnispolitik insbesondere im„Friedenskampf“. Maßgeblicher Einfluß auf die Initiativen „Weg mit denBenıfsverboten“, „Christen fiir die Abrüstung“ und „Krefelder Appell",jeweils in enger Abstimjung mit der DKP)Deutsche Kommunistische Partei(Filiale der SED in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland)Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (DDR)Freie Deutsche Jugend (DDR)Fèdèration Intemationale des Résistants(Internationale Föderation der Widerstandskämpfer; Einwirkungsorganisa-tion) .

DKP-nahes Reisebüro, I-IamburgIntemationale Demokratische Frauenföderation (Einwirkungsorganisation)Intemationale Joumalisten-OrganisationIntemationale Vereinigung Demokratischer Juristen (Einwirkungsorganisa-tion)Intemationaler Studentenbund (Einwirkungsorganisation)Intemationales Institut fiir den Frieden (siehe WFR)Junge Pioniere - Sozialistische Kinderorganisation (Nebenorganisation derDKP) _;

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Ultimately, an infiltration has occurred when extremists of radical political circles havesuccessfully passed the so-called “long march through the institutions”, i.e. whenradicals of the student movement, evangelicals, or creationists are appointed as statesecretaries, senators, or ministers. A close monitoring is therefore crucial inestablishing the extent to which right-wing populist party members gain politicalresponsibilities and carry their agenda into security authorities.

Key points• All radical political spectres and ideologies can be seen to pose a threat in the

sense of infiltration; intersections with instrumentalisation or espionage may occur

• Security agencies’ employees may turn into perpetrators later on in their

career, e.g. due to personal or financial needs

• Perpetrators may also be portrayed as whistle-blowers by the media

• Today infiltration is mostly seen as infiltration by ISIS and other islamists. The

threat of infiltration by other actors is nearly unknown, the younger analysts nearly forgot PIRA or RAF, the agencies are more or less not aware of others.

• There is no Counterintelligence (CI) to prevent infiltration and no measures are working - as to be seen with the cases mentioned above. The only CI is the vetting process

• The biggest fear is: What to do with the political extremists which are -due to their political success- working now in relevant boards and committees and achieved insights into police and intelligence work?

• How to deal with the problem of political sensitive discussions (Muslims in prison, Lebanese gangs in the police > accusation of racism by the media)

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