How Albania Accidentally Exposed Its Own Intelligence Operatives
The Republic of Albania, a NATO member, has been posting sensitive information about its secret service online, publishing thousands of payments made by the spy agency.
By doing so the identities of foreign and domestic operatives have been uncovered, and number plates used by the intelligence officers, and other sensitive details published to the web. The leak was discovered by the author, and was first published The Independent. We recommend reading the article for more details on what the spreadsheets disclosed, such as tantalising clues about the operations of the clandestine agency.
This in-depth article details how the leak was discovered, and, the Albanian authorities’ apparent inability to remove the leaks from the web after they were repeatedly notified of them.
What happened was, in fact, simple.
In an effort to boost transparency and combat corruption, the Albanian Ministry of Finance and Economy publishes — almost on a daily basis — spreadsheets of day-to-day payments of all government institutions on their website.
Image 1. In a boost to foster transparency, expenditures of government agencies are available for almost every day of the year on Albania’s Finance Ministry’s website.
One of the columns in the spreadsheets refers to the specific Albanian governmental institution, such as the Prime Ministry, the Presidency, and the various courts in the country.
Image 2. A sample of a spreadsheet available on the website of the Albanian Finance Ministry.
But that’s not all, the payments can also be filtered by the State Intelligence Service (Albanian: Shërbimi Informativ Shtetëror), commonly known by its acronym SHISH, including a veritable sea of information about domestic and foreign intelligence operations and intelligence personnel of a NATO country.
Image 3. A spreadsheet filtered for only entries related to SHISH, Albania’s security agency. The Finance Ministry has removed the description and receiving party of the money since the first publication highlighting the security breach.
The leaks contained dozens of names of regional and national operatives, names, positions and identification card numbers of at least eight foreign based operatives of the SHISH, two of whom hold sensitive posts at NATO in Belgium. Other intelligence officers were posted to countries that included Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia and Italy.
In their payments, the SHISH also disclosed a large number of vehicle registration plates, sometimes by including the make and model of cars used by Albanian intelligence officers.
Image 4. The spreadsheets also include a large number of vehicle registration plates, sometimes even detailing the brand and model type of vehicles used by the Albanian intelligence officers.
Names and identification cards of regional operatives retracting large amounts of cash payments from the SHISH were also included in the spreadsheets. The specific dates and regional headquarters are mentioned per payment.
A government source, who asked not to be identified, suggested that the cash was used to pay informants. The information appeared to get updated on a daily basis, when the Ministry would simply upload a new spreadsheet online.
Payments also included dozens of trips to other countries, occasionally disclosing to what country the SHISH agents where traveling. For example, one agent received 2,000 euro in cash for a trip to Slovenia in January 2018.
Image 5. An Albanian intelligence officer withdrew 2,000 euros for a trip to Slovenia, the spreadsheets show.
Following the publication on The Independent, the SHISH and the Ministry of Finance vowed to remove the information, in order to stop more people from obtaining it. However, shortly after that, the SHISH published a statement that “the news on the leaking of secret information by the SHISH is not true.”
Image 6. A statement from the SHISH claiming that no secret information was leaked.
A longtime former official of the Albanian intelligence service told Bellingcatthat the “inability [of the Albanian authorities] to remove the data comes from the fact that they don’t feel personally responsible for the leaks. That is why the information continues to be online and will probably stay online.”
A spokesperson at Albania’s Finance Ministry referred us back to the SHISH, as “this is related to the relevant institution [SHISH] and if it has a position they should clarify it.” A spokesperson at the SHISH was not immediately available for comment. The latter used his personal Facebook to get in touch with journalists, but has, since the initial publication, deactivated his account. A SHISH intelligence officer was also contacted via WhatsApp, but while the person did read our messages, no reply was sent at the time of publication.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time that sensitive information about the SHISH showed up on the web.
Image 7. The identification card of Helidon Bendo, director of Albania’s State Intelligence Service, or SHISH.
In 2017, the office of the Albanian President uploaded what is known as a “decriminalisation form” of Helidon Bendo, the SHISH’s director, to prove he had not been prosecuted for any crimes. This method is used to ban convicted people from holding elected positions or key government functions in the Albania. The file was uploaded to the internet without obscuring the intelligence director’s identification card. It also failed to obscure his home address.
Editorial support by Natalia Antonova and Christiaan Triebert.
Source of this article >> https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2018/12/18/how-albania-accidentally-exposed-its-own-intelligence-operatives/
Details of Albania’s clandestine operatives posted online due to admin error
DECEMBER 19, 2018 LEAVE A COMMENT
Sensitive information about the identities and activities of Albania’s intelligence operatives appeared online, apparently due to an administrative blunder. The incident has reportedly alarmed officials at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), of which Albania has been a member since 2009. British newspaper The Independent, which reported the incident earlier this month, described it as “a dangerous breach that could have international consequences”. The paper quoted a former officer in the United States Central Intelligence Agency who described the breach as “the type of bureaucratic catastrophe that could put lives at risk”.
Until the end of the Cold War, Albania was a communist state aligned with China. Since 1991, however, the former communist country has tried to align itself with the West. As part of this strategy, successive Albanian administrations have tried to combat widespread nepotism and government corruption. A significant aspect of this ongoing anti-corruption campaign involves the daily publication of the financial activities of Albanian government agencies. This information is available in searchable spreadsheets on the website of Albania’s Ministry of Finance and Economy. Recently, however, Vincent Triest, a researcher with British-based investigative website Bellingcat, noticed that the publicly available spreadsheets contained information about the State Intelligence Service, Albania’s spy agency, known as SHISH. In reading through the spreadsheets, Triest was able to find the names, official job titles, salaries and monthly expenses of at least eight senior members of SHISH. Most of them, said Triest, serve under official (diplomatic) cover at Albanian embassies and consulates in Greece, Italy, Belgium, Serbia, and elsewhere in Europe.
In a follow-up article posted yesterday on Bellingcat’s website, Triest said that the spreadsheets on the website of the Albanian Finance Ministry contain names and national identification records of SHISH officers, the agency field offices where they are serving, and even the make and model of the vehicles they drive along with their license plate numbers. A separate spreadsheet lists the construction contractors, plumbers and electricians used by various SHISH field offices, as well as the mechanics that are contracted to service the agency’s vehicles. Remarkably, at least two of the exposed SHISH officers are serving in “sensitive posts at NATO headquarters in Brussels”, writes Triest. This has raised alarms at NATO, as Albanian intelligence officers with access to NATO’s secrets could now become susceptible to possible recruitment by adversary spy agencies, said The Independent. The paper added that it notified the Albanian government of the security breach, and was told that the sensitive data would be promptly removed from government websites.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 19 December 2018 | Permalink
Article link >> https://intelnews.org/2018/12/19/01-2460/