Black Cube: The Bumbling Spies of the ‘Private Mossad’

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/black-cube-the-bumbling-spies-of-the-private-mossad-11560793198

By Bradley Hope and Jacquie McNish
The Wall Street Journal
June 17, 2019

In 2015, a private investigator masquerading as an adviser to a wealthy Indian 
businessman blundered trying to dig up dirt on an outspoken Russia critic. An 
undercover operative unsuccessfully tried to prod a former Canadian judge to 
disparage Jews in 2017. Last year, agents were exposed engineering a smear 
effort against financier George Soros.

The would-be secret agents all worked for Black Cube, a private Israeli 
investigative firm often referred to in press reports as a “private Mossad.”

The firm has helped clients by covertly eliciting damaging information about 
competitors or legal opponents, among other things. But a number of its cases 
in recent years have been marred when flimsy cover stories were exposed by 
bumbling agents and risky tactics, according to a review of past cases and 
Black Cube internal documents, along with former employees, rivals, targets and 
clients.

In an interview, Efraim Halevy, a member of Black Cube’s advisory board, 
defended the firm’s use of fake identities, saying businesses need these 
tactics because “documents are becoming less prevalent” and the only evidence 
is “human sources.” He stressed that creating “virtual” situations to gain 
access and information have “to be done in a legal manner.”

[...]

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