”A person has been arrested suspected of the unlawful intelligence activities against Sweden”, said the Swedish security service, the press release went out with onsdagsmorgongen.
– It is about a person who is suspected of having recruited as an agent of a Russian intelligence officer who worked under diplomatic cover in Sweden, ” says Daniel Stenling, head of counterintelligence at the security service.
a number of years been identified by the Fbi as the country that spies are the most in Sweden (followed by China and Iran). According to what Säpos counter-intelligence previously stated, you work a large number of Russian diplomats in Sweden under a false guise.
According to the Fbi, an estimated one-third of the accredited Russian diplomats, in fact, be intelligence officers. Russia currently has 33 diplomats accredited and about a dozen of them would, if the Fbi has the right, engage in espionage.
in Sweden, working for either the military intelligence service GRU, or the civilian equivalent SVR.
GRU low according to the british authorities behind the attempt to kill with nerve gas against the rebels in Sergei Skripal. GRU is traditionally aimed against military targets, and they revealed storspionerna Stig Wennerström and Stig Bergling was recruited by the GRU.
the SVR is the Russian federation’s external, civilian, intelligence (the business was previously included in the KGB). SVR works with technical and scientific intelligence.
the Fbi says that the now arrested person, the person ”working in the Swedish high-tech industry with the information that the secret Police know is of interest to a foreign power, intelligence”.
the industries that fit into the description: Ericsson and Saab are the most well known. It may indicate that it has been SVR recruiting the now arrested person.
According to the Fbi has ”worked with the case over a longer period of time and carried out intensive intelligence and investigation” in the case. It indicates that you conducted a comprehensive reconnaissance.
Crime is suspected to have been going on since at least 2017, according to the Fbi. There is much to suggest, therefore, that the person had eyes on her for a long time.
Of Säpos press release also states that the person arrested ”were arrested during a meeting in central Stockholm on Wednesday 26 February.” This suggests that the Fbi expected to turn to in order to be able to coat the contact with the Russian underrlättelseofficeren.
Possibly you have also gone over the material confirming the suspicions and justified an arrest.
with the support of the Police suggest that the Fbi requested reinforcement at the arrest. Probably to prevent that someone would have time to slip away, or the material would get destroyed in connection with the arrest.
Despite the modern cyberspionage and cyber-attacks has tradionellt espionage all the time, even after the end of the cold war, been going on in Sweden. It includes the intelligence officers who monitor who can be enlisted as agents, it tells us, among other things, the Fbi.
According to the classic model approaching then the foreign power on an often innocent way, the proposed agent. Personal ties are tied by common interests. Enrollment continues on the oskydlig level, but are becoming increasingly more advanced. To finally leave the proposed agent over such sensitive material, he or she becomes stuck.
and personal meetings between the supervisor and the agent are classic methods that still are used, in places also in the Stockholm area. To disclose such activities directed against Sweden is a task for the Säpos counter-intelligence. The head of the Säpos counter-intelligence Daniel Stenlig notes in the press release:
technological developments have made to state actors cyberinhämtning become more advanced. At the same time, also the traditional personbaserade collection, to recruit agents. The combination provides both the breadth and depth of state actors retrieval of the secret information.