• Iran’s intelligence ministry said it broke up a CIA spying ring in the country, and detained 17 Iranian suspects.
• The suspects were employed in “vital private sector centers in the economic, nuclear, infrastructural, military and cyber areas,” where they “collected classified information,” the ministry said, according to Sky News.
• They were lured into working for the CIA by being offered a chance to move to the US and work there, CNN reported the ministry as saying.
• Iranian news agencies also published photos of several men purported to be the spying ring’s handlers.
• Monday’s announcement comes as nuclear and military tensions between Tehran and the West continue to mount.

Iran says it has detained 17 citizens accused of spying for the CIA, and that some of them will be executed.

The country’s intelligence ministry said it had broken up a spying ring consisting of Iranian who were lured by a chance to move to the US and work there, CNN reported on Monday.

The suspects were “employed in sensitive and vital private sector centers in the economic, nuclear, infrastructural, military and cyber areas … where they collected classified information,” an Iranian intelligence official told state TV on Monday, according to Sky News.

The intelligence official did not give his name, which Sky News said is unusual.

The CIA has not yet responded to Iran’s announcement.

The mission of the alleged spies had been to collect classified information “from substantial centers as well as intelligence/technical operations,” the intelligence ministry said in a document, cited by CNN.

Iranian authorities arrested the alleged spies months ago, and many of them have been detained in prison since, according to Sky News and CNN reported.

Some of the suspects have also been sentenced to death, though the unnamed intelligence official did not say how many, Sky News reported.

Iran’s intelligence ministry said in a document, as cited by CNN: “Defendants serving their sentences in prison mentioning tempting promises of CIA officers including emigration to USA, a proper job in America, and money.”

All 17 suspects have confessed to spying for the CIA, CNN said.

Amnesty International reported last week, however, that Iranian authorities have a history of using solitary confinement and threats against family members to make people unsavory to the regime confess to crimes they didn’t commit.

The ministry also appeared to suggest that Iranian authorities plan to retaliate against the CIA.

It said, according to CNN: “Individuals who consciously and deliberately betrayed the country and refused to compensate for the losses have been handed over to the judiciary system.”

“Others, who honestly cooperated with the security system and their remorsefulness have been proved, have been managed with intelligence direction against Americans,” the ministry added.

Tehran’s announcement comes amid weeks of spiraling tensions with the West.

There have been several maritime skirmishes on the Strait of Hormuz – a narrow waterway to Iran’s south that’s crucial to global oil trade – since mid-June.

Iranian authorities seized two British-linked oil tankers in the strait last Friday, in what appears to be retaliation to the UK’s seizure of an Iranian oil tanker off the British territory of Gibraltar on July 4. Iran seized the British-flagged Stena Impero, and briefly detained another ship, the Mescar.

Read more: A radio recording reveals the exchange between a Royal Navy frigate and Iranian armed forces vessels moments before a UK tanker was seized

US President Donald Trump last week also said a US warship had shot down an Iranian drone, though Tehran has repeatedly said this didn’t happen.

Iran and the West remain at odds over the 2015 nuclear deal and crippling US sanctions. Tehran violated a 300 kg limit on enriched uranium earlier this month and has vowed to increase its stockpile. </s> DUBAI, United Arab Emirates >> Iran today announced the arrest of 17 Iranians it accused of spying on the country’s nuclear and military sites for the CIA and said some of them have been sentenced to death. President Donald Trump said there was “zero truth” to the claims.

The arrests happened over the past months, an Iranian intelligence official said at a news conference in Tehran. He said those taken into custody worked on “sensitive sites” in military and nuclear installations. The official did not say how many were given death sentences.

The announcement came amid weeks of rising tensions between Washington and Tehran over Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of Iran’s nuclear agreement with world powers last year and impose sweeping sanctions on the country.

The official said the 17 were recruited by the CIA and had “sophisticated training” but did not succeed in their sabotage missions. Their spying missions included collecting information at the facilities where they worked and installing monitoring devices, he said.

He said some were staff members at the targeted facilities, and the rest were working as consultant and contractors. The official said the CIA had promised them U.S. visas or jobs in America.

“The Report of Iran capturing CIA spies is totally false. Zero truth. Just more lies and propaganda,” Trump tweeted, noting Iran’s denials that a U.S. warship in the Strait of Hormuz had destroyed an Iranian drone last week.

“Their Economy is dead, and will get much worse. Iran is a total mess!” he added.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a former CIA director, declined to address specifics of the arrests but said: “The Iranian regime has a long history of lying.”

“I think everyone should take with a grain of salt everything that the Islamic Republic of Iran asserts today,” he added.

With tensions rising recently, the U.S. has increased its military presence in the region and is sending at least 500 U.S. soldiers to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s rival.

Last month, U.S. officials said American military cyberforces struck Iranian Revolutionary Guard computers, disabling systems that controlled its rocket and missile launchers. The cyberattack came after Trump backed away from an airstrike in response to Iran’s downing of a U.S. surveillance drone.

The Iranian official did not give his name but was identified as the director of the counterespionage department of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry. It is rare in Iran for intelligence officials to appear before media, or for any official to give a news conference without identifying himself.

The official said some of the agents recruited by the CIA had turned and are now working with his department against the United States.

He also handed out a CD with video of what Iran said was a foreign female spy working for the CIA. The disc also included the names of several U.S. Embassy staff members in Turkey, India, Zimbabwe and Austria who Iran said were in touch with the recruited Iranian spies.

Iran occasionally announces the detention of people it says are spying for foreign countries, including the U.S. and Israel. In June, Iran said it executed a former Defense Ministry employee convicted of spying for the CIA. In April, it said it uncovered 290 CIA spies inside and outside the country over the past several years. </s> Help us grow and continue telling Israel’s story to the world.

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Iran has captured 17 spies working for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and some have been sentenced to death, Iranian media reported on Monday, according to Fars.

State television quoted the Intelligence Ministry as saying it had broken up a CIA spying ring and captured 17 suspects. None of the spies were in contact with each other and all of those arrested were Iranian citizens, according to Fars.

The announcement comes after three months of spiraling confrontation with the West that began when new tighter US sanctions took effect at the start of May, Reuters reported. Last week Iran captured a British tanker in the Strait of Hormuz after Britain's Royal Marines seized an Iranian tanker off the coast of Gibraltar in July 4.

"The identified spies were employed in sensitive and vital private sector centers in the economic, nuclear, infrastructural, military and cyber areas... where they collected classified information," said a ministry statement read on state television.

The CIA recruited some of the spies by offering to aid them with the US visa application process and promises of permanent residence permits, according to Fars. The Iranian nationals were also assured of their safety in Iran and abroad.

Some of the recruitments were conducted by CIA officers on the sidelines of scientific conferences in Europe, Africa and Asia. The CIA also began correspondence with some of the Iranian nationals through social networks and email.

As part of the espionage operation, the CIA established fake companies to communicate with the Iranian nationals on the pretext of hiring Iranian experts or supplying equipment from abroad.

The spies established secure communications with the CIA with the help of intelligence tools and complex technical equipment from the agency.

Espionage equipment and money were transported into the country inside stones with spyware embedded in them. Agents would then retrieve the stones from various areas in cities, parks and mountain areas and remove the equipment by breaking the stones.

The agents were also provided with fake identity documents.

The CIA had developed an emergency escape plan for the spies, in which the agents would meet CIA officers at a predetermined place in a border town and then exit the country with the agent. Instead, the agents were captured by Iranian officials when they arrived at the predetermined escape point, according to Fars.

The Intelligence Ministry stated that although the spies had undergone training to withstand interrogation, all the members of the spy network ended up confessing to communicating with the CIA. Fars also reported that information from the spies was directed against the US.

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry wil provide information found in the uncovering of this spy ring to intelligence services in other countries in order to cause further defeats in CIA espionage attempts. This will most likely affect other European and Asian countries as well, according to Fars.

The arrests were made in the Iranian calendar year ending in March 2019, according to Iranian state media, according to Reuters.

The Iranian judiciary issued sentences for the spies a few days ago, according to Fars. Some were sentenced to death while others received a long term prison sentence. Those arrested were professionals and experts in Iran, but did not serve any official roles.

According to the Intelligence Ministry, the spy network failed to sabotage or disrupt activities in the Islamic Republic.

It was not immediately clear if the arrests were linked to the case in which Iran said in June it had exposed a large cyber espionage network it alleged was run by the CIA, and that several US spies had been arrested in different countries as a result of this action, according to Reuters.

Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>> </s> Iran has detained 17 Iranian citizens accused of acting as spies for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, according to the country's Ministry of Intelligence.

An Intelligence Ministry document sent to CNN claims Iran had broken up a CIA spying ring and captured 17 suspects, all of whom confessed to acting as spies for the CIA.

"Defendants serving their sentences in prison mentioning tempting promises of CIA officers including emigration to USA, a proper job in America, and money," the Intelligence Ministry document said. It added that the spy mission was to collect classified information "from substantial centers as well as intelligence/technical operations."

The ministry said some of the 17 will be executed.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged caution in response to the announcement. Speaking on the Fox & Friends morning news show, he said: "The Iranian regime has a long history of lying ... I would take with a significant grain of salt any Iranian assertion about actions they've taken."

The announcement comes amid a standoff between Tehran and Western powers following President Donald Trump's 2018 decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions on Iran, and an accelerating series of recent maritime episodes, including Iran's seizure of a UK-flagged oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday.

Under the heading "Destiny of Spies," Iran's Intelligence Ministry said in the document: "Individuals who consciously and deliberately betrayed the country and refused to compensate for the losses have been handed over to the judiciary system. Others, who honestly cooperated with the security system and their remorsefulness have been proved, have been managed with intelligence direction against Americans."

CNN has approached the CIA for comment.

Tensions in the region escalated further over the weekend after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) captured a British-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday.

The IRGC accused the vessel of "violating international regulations."

Britain has warned Iran it would take "robust" action in response. The UK government's emergency response committee, known as COBRA, is meeting on Monday to discuss the situation.

Iran's actions in the strait came just hours after authorities in Gibraltar agreed to extend the detention of an Iranian oil tanker in its custody for 30 days. That ship, the Grace 1, was seized by British authorities on July 4, accused of attempting to transport oil to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions. </s> Iran said Monday it has arrested 17 Iranians accused of spying on the country’s nuclear and military sites for the CIA.

The alleged spies had “sophisticated training” and worked on “sensitive sites” in “economic, nuclear, infrastructural, military and cyber fields or their counterpart private sector,” the Iranian Intelligence Ministry’s director of counterespionage reportedly said at a rare press conference in Tehran.

All the alleged spies are reportedly Iranian nationals arrested in the past few months. Some of the 17 who resisted cooperating with Iranian intelligence will be locked up for a lengthy period, and some have already been sentenced to death, the counterintelligence director said.

“The Report of Iran capturing CIA spies is totally false. Zero truth,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Just more lies and propaganda (like their shot down drone) put out by a Religious Regime that is Badly Failing and has no idea what to do. Their Economy is dead, and will get much worse. Iran is a total mess!”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who previously was CIA director, appeared to agree.

“The Iranian regime has a long history of lying,” Pompeo said Monday. “It’s part of the nature of the ayatollah to lie to the world. I would take with a significant grain of salt any Iranian assertion about actions that they’ve taken.”

The latest conflict comes amid a continuing escalation of bilateral tensions that started when President Trump pulled out of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran last May. Last month, Iran shot down an unmanned American military-surveillance drone over the Gulf of Oman. Trump originally ordered military strikes on Iranian targets as retaliation but canceled that order at the last minute. </s> Iran’s Intelligence Ministry on Monday announced that it has dismantled a spying network inside the country serving the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States.

A total of 17 people were arrested linked to the network, said a statement from the ministry carried by the official IRNA news agency.

Some of the detainees have been sentenced to death, it said, but did not identify those arrested.

“The identified spies were employed in sensitive and vital private sector centres in the economic, nuclear, infrastructural, military and cyber areas… where they collected classified information,” it said.

The statement was also cited by Press TV.

A detailed statement was later published by Fars news agency, with photographs of some of the spies captured:

The director-general of the intelligence ministry’s counterespionage department said in a press conference in Tehran on Monday that the detained spies had been trained by the CIA and were captured inside the country.

“The rulings for these spies have been issued and a number of them will be executed as corruptors on Earth,” he added.

Identified spies are staffs of sensitive and significant centers and their counterpart private sectors, working as contractors or consultors.

Totally, 17 spies have been identified who were operating in unlinked cells.

“Since CIA abuses the process of US visa application, some of the Iranian citizens get into the visa trap and they are asked to be hired as spies in return for a US visa. Some others who intended to maintain or extend their visas, have been framed up by the CIA, in violation of the US laws,” the intelligence ministry official said, and added, “Some of the CIA’s baits managed to escape this trap with the help of their lawyers.”

“Through establishing windon companies and under the pretext of hiring Iranian specialists in these corporations or supplying equipment from abroad, the CIA arranges to get up approaches to Iranian citizens,” he added.

Direct propaganda of CIA officers under “diplomatic titles” to Iranian citizens on the sidelines of scientific conferences in European, African, and Asian countries was one of the intelligence approach methods. In some cases, CIA officers introduced themselves as an American intelligence agent and then through E-mails or messages in social networks invited users of these networks to intelligence cooperation.

Tempting promises of CIA officers, including emigration to USA, a proper job in America, and money has been among other ways used by the US intelligence body to hire spies, the intelligence ministry said, and added, “Even, medical aid abroad had been promised to some spies, but none of them came true.”

“Something in common among all members of this network is the promise to guarantee spies safety both in and outside Iran and the full assurance about not being detected by Iran counter espionage, the official said.

Later it released the photos of the CIA handlers of the captured spies as well as some relevant documents pertaining the case.

Collecting classified information from substantial centers as well as intelligence-technical operations, were the assigned missions to this network, according to the official.

He said all individuals had been trained by CIA officers in complicated courses about how to set up a safe communication from inside Iran to abroad. </s> Iranian officials said Monday that 17 people have been captured who were allegedly spies working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, NBC News reported.

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry held a briefing on Monday where they announced the alleged spies were Iranian citizens but trained by the CIA.

Some of those arrested have been sentenced to death, the Intelligence Ministry said.

U.S. officials have not yet responded to the allegations. The Iranian government occasionally makes similar claims and it was not immediately possible to determine whether they are legitimate. The U.S. government never acknowledges CIA recruitment abroad. </s> The Iranian government said on Monday that it had broken up a CIA spy ring, in the latest sign of increased tensions between Iran, the US and other NATO powers.

A statement carried on public television from the Intelligence Ministry in Tehran claimed that they had detained 17 suspected agents. The Fars news agency, nominally independent but considered at least partly state-influenced, said that some of them had been given death sentences.

"Some were sentenced to death and some to long-term imprisonment," the ministry told reporters.

Official: Suspects were Iranians recruited by CIA

Iran recently claimed to have exposed a large cyber espionage network which it said was run by the CIA. At a press conference, an intelligence official said that the arrests had taken place over the past months. He did not specify how many suspects had been sentenced to capital punishment. In an unusual move, the official did not identify himself at the press gathering.

He said that some had been recruited by a "visa trap" scheme, set up by the CIA for Iranians looking to travel to the US. They were allegedly promised immigration documents or jobs in the US in return for espionage work. All the suspects were Iranian nationals who had acted independently of one another, he told journalists.

"Some were approached when they were applying for a visa, while others had visas from before and were pressured by the CIA in order to renew them."

The official added that some of those arrested had received "sophisticated training" and worked at nuclear and military facilities, then said that none had succeeded in their missions of sabotage.

They had been "employed at sensitive and crucial centers and also the private sector related to them, working as contractors or consultants," he said.

Iran said in April that it had uncovered nearly 300 CIA spies working in Iran over the past few years.

Trump: Iran is a mess and it is fabricating stories

President Donald Trump categorically denied the reports of Iran capturing spies from the CIA. He tweeted the claims are "totally false" and that the Middle Eastern state "is a total mess!"

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo poured more scorn on the claims, saying "the Iranian regime has a long history of lying."

He declined to comment specifically on the arrests, but added: "I would take with a significant grain of salt any Iranian assertion about actions that they've taken."

The announcement came after months of rapidly escalating confrontation between Tehran and Washington, and other NATO members after US President Donald Trump withdrew from a landmark nuclear deal and imposed economic sanctions, and more recently over the detainment of an oil tanker by British authorities that prompted a retaliatory seizure by Iran.

es/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)

Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here. </s> Russia says it arrested a U.S. citizen spying in their country. But former CIA officers say that, far from a counterintelligence coup, the American’s detention is most likely payback for the U.S. arrest of confessed Russian agent Maria Butina.

In a short statement Monday, Russia’s Tass news agency said authorities arrested American Paul Whelan “in Moscow while on a spy mission” and that he faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison if convicted. A State Department spokesperson said the department has been “formally notified of the detention” and has requested access to Whelan.

"This wasn't planned yesterday. It was probably planned back after [Butina] was arrested," Dan Hoffman, a former Moscow station chief for the CIA, told The Daily Beast. “They want to deter future U.S. actions against other private citizens."

Butina pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent for Moscow and signed a broad cooperation agreement with the Justice Department. Prosecutors said she tried to build a backchannel between Kremlin officials and Republican operatives during the 2016 presidential campaign. Russian officials have lodged a number of protests with the State Department about the conditions of her detention (she’s spent weeks in solitary confinement), and President Vladimir Putin said his intelligence services had no association with her.

If the Kremlin has detained Whelan as tit-for-tat in response to Butina’s arrest, then they could use her treatment to justify their treatment of Whelan. In September, the DOJ lawyers prosecuting Butina cited the Russian consulates’ interest in her case as reason to keep her in jail before her trial.

“Since the detention hearing in this case, the actions of the Russian Federation and its officials toward the defendant have confirmed her relationship with, and value to, her own government,” they wrote. “To date, the Russian government has conducted six consular visits with the defendant.”

DOJ lawyers also noted that Russia’s foreign minister had spoken twice to Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, about Butina’s case and that the Kremlin had issued more diplomatic notes on her behalf than for other Russians imprisoned in the U.S. Lawyers concluded that her flight risk was “not hypothetical.”

Hoffman said the incident may serve a domestic purpose for the Kremlin.

"Vladimir Putin is delivering a message to his own people: Russia is a besieged fortress, there's espionage everywhere—I'm the only one who can defend us,” Hoffman said.

Indeed, a lawmaker from Russia’s Duma called for authorities to arrest Americans in retaliation.

“ We would never leave a real intelligence officer vulnerable to arrest, and give Putin a weapon to trade for someone like Ames, Hanssen or Butina. ” — former CIA officer John Sipher

John Sipher, a former CIA officer who served in Russia, said it’s “highly unlikely that [Whelan] is associated with U.S. intelligence” because of the risks involved. “From my experience we would almost never send someone to Russia without diplomatic immunity. Given the laxity of Russian laws and the aggressiveness of their espionage apparatus, we could not guarantee the safety of someone traveling under unofficial cover.”

Russia’s definition of espionage is “extremely flexible and covers all sorts of things that we would not consider illegal in any way,” Sipher added.

Russia has previously arrested U.S. citizens as leverage against the detention of Russian spies in America. For instance, in 1986 the KGB arrested reporter Nicholas Daniloff in the Soviet Union three days after the FBI arrested of Gennadi Zakharov, an alleged intelligence officer and employee of the Soviet U.N. mission in New York.

Federal agents busted Zakharov after he allegedly handed over money to a Guyanese contact for classified U.S. Air Force documents. Daniloff wrote in a subsequent memoir that he knew immediately after the KGB planted maps marked “Secret” on him via a Russian friend that he would end up a hostage for Zakharov’s release. His thinking was prescient—the Reagan administration arranged a swap for him that shortly thereafter.

Sipher said this is exactly the situation the U.S. would try to avoid.

“We would never leave a real intelligence officer vulnerable to arrest, and give Putin a weapon to trade for someone like Ames, Hanssen or Butina,” he said.

But while there's precedent, it's not how Russia usually handles spies, says former CIA Russia chief Steve Hall. “They pick up a foreign diplomat, and accuse them correctly or incorrectly of being an intelligence officer, sometimes detain them, but they are always released and usually declared persona non grata and thrown out of the country,” he said in an interview Monday. Sometimes, they accuse a foreign businessman or academic of spying or other malfeasance as a negotiating tactic to get sensitive information or a better business deal for the Russian government. But this came with a legal charge of espionage and incarceration.

That’s why he thinks this is about revenge for the FBI arrest of Butina.

“The Russians are huge on reciprocity. If you are going to do something to us, we’ll do it to you,” Hall said. “That’s my assessment of what’s happening in this case.”

The arrest comes amid an intensifying spy war between Russia and the West following Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 election and its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The Trump administration has sanctioned a number of personnel from Russia’s Main Intelligence Department (GRU) and Federal Security Service (FSB) for spreading disinformation during the 2016 election, hacking Democratic emails, and launching cyber attacks. After Russian GRU officers allegedly tried to assassinate a defector in England with a nerve agent , at least 20 Western countries expelled Russian diplomats in solidarity with the United Kingdom.

Russia responded by booting 60 American diplomats and closing down a U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg.
The Iranian government announces the arrest of 17 citizens in the last months who are accused of spying in favour of the CIA.