Turkey’s secret services – the National Intelligence Organisation (MİT) – dismantled a cyber-espionage network that collected personal data on thousands of people worldwide, including Turkish citizens, in an operation that follows the dismantling earlier this year of an Israeli Mossad spy network in the country.
Turkish media reported that the operation unfolded as part of the investigation launched by the republic’s chief prosecutor’s office in Ankara, and was carried out with the collaboration of teams from the MİT, the gendarmerie and the National Cyber Incident Response Centre (USOM). As a result, at least 11 suspects were arrested for their links to the network, and remanded in custody pending trial. Following the operation, several websites linked to the spying network were blocked.
According to information revealed in the investigation, the cyber-espionage network shared personal data of those spied on with terrorist organisations; the data, including critical security information, was obtained from multiple countries and shared with these organisations, according to media reports in Turkey.
Last May, Turkey’s secret services released a video warning Turkish citizens about the risk of foreign agents’ activities in the country: “Hostile intelligence services that threaten the interests, unity, integrity and values of our country may recruit our citizens as spies,” the MİT warned, calling on citizens to report possible suspects. Earlier this year, an investigation uncovered an extensive network spying on foreign citizens living in Turkey organised by the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence services, which recruited mainly Syrians and Palestinians on Turkish territory.
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Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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