In a collaborative operation with the Anti-Terrorism Branch of the Istanbul Police Department, the agency’s counterintelligence unit apprehended seven people who all confessed to working for Mossad in their testimonies, Daily Sabah reported.
According to MIT, the seven suspects are among the 56 operatives linked to a total of nine networks, which are each overseen by nine Mossad agents based in Tel Aviv and have the ability to operate on an international scale.
Documents from MIT revealed that the spies were gathering biographical intelligence on foreign nationals through an online routing method, tracking vehicle movements via GPS, hacking into password-protected networks based on Wi-Fi devices and finding private locations.
The operatives also physically followed certain targets determined by Mossad to surveil and photograph one-on-one meetings, an operation supervised by an Israeli of Arab origin, Soliman Agbaria.
The cell, consisting of citizens from various Middle Eastern countries, used several fake websites in multiple languages, chiefly Arabic, to obtain technical locations and real IP addresses, MIT discovered.
All communication between Mossad agents in Turkey and abroad was done through single-use mobile phone lines owned by fake persons in Spain, England, Germany, Sweden, Malaysia, Indonesia and Belgium.
MIT further found that Mossad sent its spies of Arab origin in Istanbul to especially Lebanon and Syria to gather intelligence and mark locations to be struck by armed drones.
Moreover, Mossad sent dozens of spies, including Turkish nationals, on secret three-stop touristic trips to first Serbia, then Dubai, and finally, Thailand’s capital Bangkok, three places that don’t require a visa for Turkish citizens. In Bangkok, the operatives would be taken to a Mossad center to learn espionage.
MIT also learned that Mossad developed overcomplicated methods and conducted various operations in Istanbul to evade Turkish intelligence.
MNA/PR