An unnamed former Australian politician, who was successfully cultivated by an international spy ring, once suggested bringing a prime minister's family member into contact with his foreign handlers.
The boss of Australia's domestic intelligence organisation has given few details of the alleged plot from "several years ago" but has confirmed the Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce has conducted more than 120 operations since it was established in 2020.
Delivering his annual threat assessment, the director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) has revealed he regularly speaks to overseas counterparts to urge them to stop espionage activities here, adding "and they usually do".
In his speech, Mike Burgess has described an overseas intelligence service that considers Australia a "priority target" and runs a group of operatives ASIO has dubbed the "Australia team", or "A-Team".
"The spies pose as consultants, head-hunters, local government officials, academics and think tank researchers, claiming to be from fictional companies such as Data 31," Mr Burgess told an audience inside ASIO's Canberra headquarters.
"Most 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."
Mr Burgess has described how several years ago the A-team successfully cultivated and recruited a former, but unnamed, Australian politician.
"This politician sold out their country, party and former colleagues to advance the interests of the foreign regime."
"At one point, the former politician even proposed bringing a prime minister's family member into the spies' orbit. Fortunately that plot did not go ahead but other schemes did."
The ASIO boss has also discussed the threat of sabotage saying his organisation is "aware of one nation state conducting multiple attempts to scan critical infrastructure in Australia and other countries, targeting water, transport and energy networks".
Middle East conflict 'resonating' here but Australians not travelling to join terror groups
Since the Hamas attack on Israel in October last year, ASIO says it seen "heightened community tensions that have translated into some incidents of violence" connected to protests, but believes Australians are not travelling to terrorist groups in the Middle East.
"While the conflict is a long way away from Australia, it is resonating here and ASIO is carefully monitoring the implications for domestic security," Mr Burgess said.
"Sunni violent extremism poses the greatest religiously motivated violent extremist threat in Australia. But we are not seeing Australians travelling to join the terrorists in the Middle East as we did for the ISIL Caliphate.
"And thankfully, we have not seen the lone actor attacks that have occurred elsewhere and were inspired by that conflict," Mr Burgess noted.
"Over the last 18 months, we've also seen an uptick in the number of nationalist and racist violent extremists advocating sabotage in private conversations, both here and overseas.
"It's particularly pronounced among 'accelerationists' – extremists who want to trigger a so-called 'race war'," the ASIO boss added.
Defence industry staff urged to be discreet to protect military secrets
ASIO has again warned that advanced Australian military projects are continuing to be targeted by foreign operatives such as the "A-Team", who are using professional networking sites to gain access.
Mr Burgess believes too many Australians miss the warning signs or make the A-team's work too easy".
"On just one professional networking site, there are 14,000 Australians publicly boasting about having a security clearance or working in the intelligence community. Some even out themselves as intelligence officers – even while proving they're not particularly good ones!
"I appreciate that people need to market themselves but please be smart and be discreet – don't make yourself an easy target," Mr Burgess urged.
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2024-02-28 09:08:09Z
CBMiWGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDI0LTAyLTI4L2FzaW8tcmV2ZWFscy1wbG90LWJ5LXJldGlyZWQtcG9saXRpY2lhbi8xMDM1MTM5MjbSAShodHRwczovL2FtcC5hYmMubmV0LmF1L2FydGljbGUvMTAzNTEzOTI2
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