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Israel/Zionism See other Israel/Zionism Articles Title: The Case of the Bumbling Spy: A Watchdog Group Gets Him on Camera A visitor to New York who claimed to be an investor named Michel Lambert is actually Aharon Almog-Assoulin, a retired Israeli security official. Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog organization at the University of Toronto, has published hard-hitting research on powerful targets in recent years: Chinese government censorship, Silicon Valley’s invasion of customers’ privacy, despotic regimes’ electronic surveillance of dissidents. It’s the kind of work that can make enemies. So when John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, got an odd request for a meeting last week from someone describing himself as a wealthy investor from Paris, he suspected a ruse and decided to set a trap. Over lunch at New York’s five-star Peninsula Hotel, the white-bearded visitor, who said his name was Michel Lambert, praised Mr. Scott-Railton’s work and pried for details about Citizen Lab. Then — “as I was finishing my crème brûlée,” Mr. Scott-Railton said — a reporter and photographer from The Associated Press, alerted by Mr. Scott-Railton and lurking nearby, confronted the visitor, who bumped into chairs and circled the room while trying to flee. At least two other men nearby appeared to be operatives — one who stood at the door, another who seemed to be filming from a table, said Mr. Scott-Railton, who himself filmed his lunch companion. The case of the bumbling spy is the latest episode involving undercover agents, working for private intelligence firms or other clients, who adopt false identities to dig up compromising information about or elicit embarrassing statements from their targets. “Michel Lambert” is a pseudonym and the Paris company he claimed to represent does not exist. The New York Times, in collaboration with Uvda, an investigative television show on Israel’s Channel 12, has confirmed that the mysterious visitor was Aharon Almog-Assoulin, a retired Israeli security official who until recently served on the town council in a suburb of Tel Aviv. Contacted by The Times on Sunday, he said, “I do not have any interest in continuing with this conversation” and hung up. Mr. Scott-Railton, shown a photograph of Mr. Almog-Assoulin, said he was certain it was the man he had met. The phenomenon of private spies drew widespread attention in 2017, when Black Cube, an Israeli private intelligence firm, was found to have used undercover agents to approach women who had accused Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood producer, of sexual misconduct. Black Cube later was identified as having sent agents, again under false cover, to investigate Obama administration officials who had worked on the Iran nuclear deal. Black Cube denied that it had played any role in approaching Citizen Lab employees, but the same undercover agent turned up in an earlier case in Canada with a Black Cube connection. Editors’ Picks How the Slice Joint Made Pizza the Perfect New York City Food A $21,000 Cosmetology School Debt, and a $9-an-Hour Job The 20 Best TV Dramas Since ‘The Sopranos’ In October 2017, a man who resembles Mr. Almog-Assoulin appeared in Toronto, using another pseudonym, to meet someone involved in long-running litigation between Catalyst Capital Group and West Face Capital, two feuding private equity firms. The person, who asked not to be named to avoid further legal trouble, said that when he saw the photo of “Michel Lambert” in an A.P. story on Saturday, he immediately recognized him as the man who had approached him, given him a false business card and questioned him about the lawsuits. In court papers, Catalyst Capital has acknowledged that to provide support for its litigation, its law firm engaged a company that subsequently hired Black Cube as a subcontractor. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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