The Swedish security police Säpo has for years suspected that someone has leaked information from their system. To find out who it was, they launched a top-secret spy investigation. Now two brothers aged 42 and 35 are charged with having sold defense secrets to Russia and the Russian military intelligence service GRU. This was announced by the National Security Authority on Friday. – The information that has been collected, forwarded and handed over without authorization can, by reaching a foreign power, be detrimental to Sweden’s security, said Attorney General Per Lindqvist. news has now gained access to the investigative documents. One of the documents the defendants are suspected of having sold on to Russia is a complete list of employees in Säpo, which corresponds to PST in Norway. Swedish DN reports that one of these worked in Sweden’s most secret intelligence organization. The eldest brother is said to have worked in both Säpo and the Swedish Armed Forces’ intelligence and security service (Must). Long investigation The investigation must have gone on for “quite a long time”, says the prosecutor in the case Mats Ljungqvist to Aftonbladet. Ljungqivst says to the newspaper that they had indications that it was a question of someone inside the Swedish civil service who could be the spy. The 42-year-old, who is now indicted for both having sold intelligence secrets to Russia and for intelligence operations against state secrets, previously worked in both Säpo and Must, the Swedish military intelligence and security service. Photo: Privat On 16 January 2017, Säpo targeted the 42-year-old brother, who is now the defendant. He was then appointed as safety manager in the Swedish Food Safety Authority. The investigators searched his computer, safe and service room at his workplace for several nights in a row. But the evidence was not sufficient. Just under five years later, Säpo had enough evidence to arrest the man. At the time, the man had been employed in both the security police and the Swedish military intelligence and security service MUST. Gained access to several sensitive reports The 42-year-old worked in Säpo between 2014 and 2015, the security police state in the press release. In addition, the investigation shows that he was also employed there from 2007 to 2011. When the man was arrested, he had already read several sensitive intelligence reports for which he did not have authorization during the years he worked for the two authorities. Among other things, he is said to have handled a file that contained a complete list of employees in the Security Police. Before the man left Säpo, the reading frequency of sensitive reports must have increased. In the interview, a Säpo employee says that this is a type of information that one does not search for, and reports it if one happens to come across it. The documents he is said to have obtained from Must were read on a computer that was produced after he left the service. In an interview, a Must manager says that the man must have had the information before he left them. “Drop of death” in a public toilet Much of the information from the preliminary investigation is confidential, and several pages of the investigation report are therefore redacted. But some of what emerges is that Säpo suspects the eldest brother of using “dead mailboxes”, where you leave spy material that can later be picked up by another person. Here the man used a public toilet in the Uppsala area. The public toilet where the accused man is said to have hidden spy material until someone else came to collect it. Photo: Säkerhetspolisen (Säpo) A spy camera that imitated a car key was found with the youngest brother. Both brothers have encrypted a lot of material on computers and USBs. After the eldest brother was arrested, the investigators were able to follow how the younger brother destroyed a hard drive. The hard disk could be partially recovered later. Denial of criminal guilt Both brothers deny having been guilty of any of the crimes they are charged with, the men’s defense attorneys tell Aftonbladet. The eldest brother is also charged with intelligence activities against state secrets, which means that he has collected secret information without handing it over to a secret power. According to his defender, lawyer Anton Strand, it is an unusual charge. – Historically speaking, serious espionage charges have not looked like this, he says to SVT Nyheter. – If the prosecutor had been more confident about their evidence, they probably would not have submitted this alternative encouragement. Strand thinks it is also special that the indictment covers a ten-year period. – Especially since the indictment itself does not specify what my client is supposed to have done, says Strand to SVT.
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Brothers charged with espionage in Sweden allegedly used a spy camera hidden in a car key – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
