A former Australian politician \u201csold out their country, party and former colleagues\u201d after being recruited by spies for a foreign regime, according to Australia\u2019s domestic intelligence agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The head of Asio, Mike Burgess, made the allegations as he outlined the prolific activities of a spy network he labelled \u201cthe A-team\u201d, although he did not name the former politician nor the country involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Delivering his annual threat assessment on Wednesday evening, Burgess said Asio confronted the spy network last year and was now speaking publicly about it because \u201cwe want the A-team to know its cover is blown\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said more Australians were being targeted for espionage and foreign interference than ever before and people needed to understand the threat was \u201cdeeper and broader than you might think\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burgess alleged there was an \u201caggressive and experienced\u201d team in a particular foreign intelligence service with a focus on Australia. \u201cWe are its priority target,\u201d he said in a speech at Asio headquarters in Canberra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe will call them \u2018the A-team\u2019 \u2013 that\u2019s not a compliment by the way \u2013 the Australia team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burgess said members trawled professional networking sites looking for Australians with access to privileged information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They looked to recruit students, academics, politicians, businesspeople, researchers, law enforcement officials and public servants at all levels of government, while using false, anglicised personae to approach their targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSome of the names they adopt include Sophy, Amy, Ben and Eric, but the team can and does use others,\u201d Burgess said. \u201cThe spies pose as consultants, head-hunters, local government officials, academics and think tank researchers, claiming to be from fictional companies such as Data 31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMost commonly, they offer their targets consulting opportunities, promising to pay thousands of dollars for reports on Australian trade, politics, economics, foreign policy, defence and security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burgess said the A-team was \u201coffering Australian defence industry employees money in return for reports on Aukus, submarine technology, missile systems and many other sensitive topics\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without naming the individual, Burgess said the A-team \u201csuccessfully cultivated and recruited a former Australian politician\u201d. He said this occurred \u201cseveral years ago\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis politician sold out their country, party and former colleagues to advance the interests of the foreign regime,\u201d Burgess said. \u201cAt one point, the former politician even proposed bringing a prime minister\u2019s family member into the spies\u2019 orbit. Fortunately that plot did not go ahead but other schemes did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burgess said that in one alleged plot, \u201cleading Australian academics and political figures were invited to a conference in an overseas country, with the organisers covering all expenses including airfares\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said members of the A-team used the conference to build relationships with Australians, openly asking who had access to government documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burgess said another Australian \u2013 described as an aspiring politician \u2013 \u201cprovided insights into the factional dynamics of his party, analysis of a recent election and the names of up-and-comers\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asio disrupted this scheme and confronted the Australians involved, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe helped the unaware ones extract themselves, and severed the links between the others and the foreign intelligence service. Several individuals should be grateful the espionage and foreign interference laws are not retrospective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This comment indicates the allegations span many years, as Australia\u2019s tough new laws against espionage and foreign interference passed the parliament in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burgess said his agency confronted the A-team directly late last year, when a team leader \u201cthought he was grooming another Australian online\u201d but was actually speaking with an Asio officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou can imagine his horror when my officer revealed himself and declared, \u2018we know who you are.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Source: The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mike Burgess outlines activities of spy network dubbed \u2018the A-team\u2019 in annual threat assessment, without naming former politician nor the country involved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":15989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,999,3356,1633,2811],"tags":[472],"class_list":["post-15988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-australia-politics","category-corruption","category-government","category-politics","tag-australian"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15988"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15994,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15988\/revisions\/15994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}