Published this article : banking services chronicle On November 11 2002 Sweden expelled two Russian diplomats for spying on radar and missile guidance technologies for the JAS 39 British-Swedish Gripen fighter jet developed by Telefon AB LM Ericsson the telecommunications multinational. The Russians threatened to reciprocate. Five current and former employees of the corporate giant are being investigated. Ironically the first foreign buyer of the aircraft may well be Poland a former Soviet satellite state and a current European Union candidate. Sweden arrested in February 2001 a worker of the Swiss-Swedish engineering group ABB on suspicion of spying for Russia. The man was released after two days for lack of evidence and reinstated. But the weighty Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter speculated that the recent Russian indiscretion was in deliberate retaliation for Swedish espionage in Russia. Sweden is rumored to have been in the market for Russian air radar designs and the JAS radar system is said by some observers to uncannily resemble its eastern counterparts. The same day a Russian military intelligence (GRU) colonel Aleksander Sipachev was sentenced in Moscow to eight years in prison and stripped of his rank. According to Russian news agencies he was convicted of attempting to sell secret documents to the CIA. Russian secret service personnel idled by the withering of Russias global presence resort to private business or are re-deployed by the state to spy on industrial and economic secrets in order to aid budding Russian multinationals. According to the FBI and the National White-collar Crime Center Russian former secret agents have teamed with computer hackers to break into corporate networks to steal vital information about product development and marketing strategies. Microsoft has admitted to such a compromising intrusion. In a December 1999 interview to Segodnya a Russia paper Eyer Winkler a former high-ranking staffer with the National Security Agency (NSA) confirmed that corruption in the Russian Government the Foreign Intelligence Service and the Main Intelligence Department allows Russian organized criminal groups to use these departments in their own interests. Criminals receive the major part of information collected by the Russian special services by means of breaking into American computer networks. When the KGB was dismantled and replaced by a host of new acronyms Russian industrial espionage was still in diapers. as a result it is a bureaucratic no-mans land roamed by agents of the GRU the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and smaller outfits such as the Federal Agency on Government Communications and Information (FAPSI). According to Stratfor the strategic forecasting consultancy the SVR and GRU both handle manned intelligence on U.S. territory with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) doing counterintelligence in America. Also both the SVR and GRU have internal counterintelligence units created for finding foreign intelligence moles. This to some extent is the division of labor in Europe as well. Germanys Federal Prosecutor has consistently warned against $5 billion worth of secrets pilfered annually from German industrial firms by foreign intelligence services especially from east Europe and Russia. The Counterintelligence News and Developments newsletter pegs the damage at $13 billion in 1996 alone Modus operandi included placing agents in international organizations setting up joint-ventures with German companies and setting up bogus companies. The (Federal Prosecutors) report also warned business leaders to be particularly wary of former diplomats or people who used to work for foreign secret services because they often had the language skills and knowledge of Germany that made them excellent agents. Russian spy rings now operate from Canada to Japan. Many of the spies have been dormant for decades and recalled to service following the implosion of the USSR. According to Asian media Russians have become increasingly active in the Far East mainly in Japan South Korea Taiwan and mainland China. Russia is worried about losing its edge in avionics electronics information technology and some emerging defense industries such as laser shields positronics unmanned vehicles wearable computing and real time triple C (communication command and control) computerized battlefield management. The main targets are surprisingly Israel and France. According to media reports the substantive clients of Russias defense industry - such as India - insist on hollowing out Russian craft and installing Israeli and west European systems instead. Russias paranoid state of mind extends to its interior. Uralinformbureau reported earlier in 2002 that the Yamal-Nenets autonomous okrug (district) restricted access to foreigners citing concerns about industrial espionage and potential sabotage of oil and gas companies. The Kremlin maintains an ever-expanding list of regions and territories with limited - or outright - forbidden - access to foreigners. The FSB the KGBs main successor is busy arresting spies all over the vast country. To select a random events of the dozens reported every year - and many are not - the Russian daily Kommersant recounted in February 2002 how when the Trunov works at the Novolipetsk metallurgical combine concluded an agreement with a Chinese company to supply it with slabs its chief negotiator was nabbed as a spy working for circles in China. His crime? He was in possession of certain documents which contained intellectual property of the crumbling and antiquated mill pertaining to a slab quality enhancement process. Foreigners are also being arrested though rarely. An American businessman Edmund Pope was detained in April 2000 for attempting to purchase the blueprints of an advanced torpedo from a Russian scientist. There have been a few other isolated apprehensions mainly for proper military espionage. But Russians bear the brunt of the campaign against foreign economic intelligence gathering. Strana.ru reported in December 2001 that speaking on the occasion of Security Services Day Putin - himself a KGB alumnus - warned veterans that the most crucial task facing the services today is protecting the countrys economy against industrial espionage. This is nothing new. According to History of Espionage Web site long before they established diplomatic relations with the USA in 1933 the Soviets had Amtorg Trading Company. Ostensibly its purpose was to encourage joint ventures between Russian and American firms. Really it was a hub of industrial undercover activities. Dozens of Soviet intelligence officers supervised at its peak during the Depression 800 American communists. The Soviet Unions European operations in Berlin (Handelsvertretung) and in London (Arcos Ltd.) were even more successful. banking services chronicle
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