Two workers from an Israeli intelligence company have been arrested in Romania for trying to intimidate the head of the national anti-corruption agency and hacking e-mails, officials said Wednesday.
An arrest warrant was issued on Sunday for Belgian David Geclowitz and Israeli-born Ron Weiner, who holds a French passport. Both work for Israeli firm Black Cube.
“An investigation has been launched and two people have been arrested,” said Mihaela Porime, a spokeswoman for prosecutors fighting organized crime.
“It’s linked to a failed intimidation bid,” added Laura Kovesi, the chief prosecutor of Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA).
Kovesi, a 42-year-old former professional basketball player, is spearheading an unprecedented anti-corruption drive in one of Europe’s poorest and most graft-prone nations.
Probes by the DNA have cost a string of prominent Romanians their jobs in recent years.
The arrest warrant said Geclowitz and Weiner had in March set up a “criminal group … aimed at sullying Kovesi’s image”.
They are suspected of harassing three people close to her, making “numerous threatening telephone calls and hacking into e-mails … hoping to uncover possible acts of corruption.”
They are also thought to have hacked into the mails of Kovesi’s friends and relatives and are believed to have been employed by a client being investigated by the anti-corruption agency, judicial sources said.
Black Cube has several former operatives of Israeli spy agency Mossad on its payroll, according to Romanian media.
Two other Israelis associated with Black Cube, Dan Zorella and Avi Yanus, are also reportedly under investigation. Both Yanus and Zorella are former Mossad agents and co-founders of Black Cube. The two deny they are being investigated.
Former Mossad director Meir Dagan was the company’s honorary president until his death last month.
Black Cube uses experts “highly experienced and trained in Israel’s elite military and governmental intelligence units,” according to the firm’s website.
AFP contributed to this report
