Sweden raises bar for espionage arrest technique

Säpo, Noa, and Swedish armed forces team fast rope onto residence of couple in their 60s suspected of spying for Russia

Not the actual arrest.

Interesting day in Sweden – where a couple in their 60s were arrested for illegal intelligence activity for Russia dating back to at least January 2013. Notwithstanding their age, in what may be a first in espionage arrests, media accounts detail witnesses observing police fast roping from two Black Hawk helicopters to arrest the couple in an attempt to prevent destruction of evidence. Other reporting indicates the couple was targeting Sweden and an unnamed foreign power, and that “they were Russians who arrived in Sweden in the late 1990s.”

Tough times for Russian intelligence. This comes on the heels of:

• Sweden’s charging less than two weeks ago of two naturalized Swedish citizens alleged to be working for the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service [corrects an earlier version which stated they were arrested recently. Their arrests were in September and November last year];

• Norway’s arrest on October 24th of José Assis Giammaria (an alias), a potential intelligence officer, possibly of the GRU; and

• Viktor Muller Ferreira, true name Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov, an alleged GRU officer arrested in Amsterdam in April and deported to Brazil.

A good, but paywalled, Economist summary of some of the activity here.

The decision to arrest agents or officers usually comes with a tension of competing goals. On the one hand, counterintelligence agencies can and do obtain a great deal of intelligence information (tradecraft including covert communications, tasking requirements, handling officers, and more) by letting the activity continue while monitoring it. If particularly effective, counterintelligence agencies can feed false information to the agents and officers, or even turn them and double them back against Russia.

On the other hand, the more effective the hostile agent or officer, the greater harm to national security they pose. Additionally, there may be compelling political or strategic reasons to take down an officer/agent network. There’s also the chance that the Russians might have been on their way to discovering their agents had been discovered, necessitating action now. Given several of these investigations appear to have been ongoing for several years, the Swedes clearly decided the counterintelligence benefit of continuing to investigate had been overcome by other factors.

Uneasy days in Russian counterintelligence – any takedown of so many officers and agents in close succession raises the specter of a mole – or moles – and/or compromise of tradecraft within the Russian ranks.

Good.

11/23 update: Björn Ivarsson correctly notes the two brothers arrested in Sweden were charged recently; they were arrested last year in September and November.