Sweden Spy Scandal Spotlights Foreign-born recruits
Last month, Norwegian authorities arrested a suspected Russian military-intelligence officer who was working undercover in their country, posing as a Brazilian academic. Now an even more dramatic espionage case engulfs Sweden: Two Iranian-born brothers, one of whom has served as a Swedish intelligence officer, have been charged with spying for Russia for several years. Their espionage is likely to cause serious harm—and it highlights a long-standing question in intelligence: how people born in hostile countries can be particularly vulnerable to recruitment by those countries and their allies.
Peyman Kia, who is 42 years old, was a Swedish success story. Kia came to Sweden with his family in the 1980s after they fled Iran, and he won Swedish citizenship in 1994 (as well as his younger brother, Payam Kia). He obtained a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree at Uppsala University and have a job as an investigator at the Swedish Customs Administration.
Just a few months later, he was hired by the Security Police (SÄPO), which is also responsible for counterintelligence. After three and a half years there, in February 2011, Kia joined Sweden’s military intelligence service MUST, which also handles foreign intelligence. Swedish media reports that Peyman Kia, while at MUST, is even believed to have been part of KSI, the agency’s inner sanctum.
Last month, Norwegian authorities arrested a suspected Russian military-intelligence officer who was working undercover in their country, posing as a Brazilian academic. Now an even more dramatic espionage case engulfs Sweden: Two Iranian-born brothers, one of whom has served as a Swedish intelligence officer, have been charged with spying for Russia for several years. Their espionage is likely to cause serious harm—and it highlights a long-standing question in intelligence: how people born in hostile countries can be particularly vulnerable to recruitment by those countries and their allies.
Peyman Kia, who is 42 years old, was a Swedish success story. Kia came to Sweden with his family in the 1980s after they fled Iran, and he won Swedish citizenship in 1994 (as well as his younger brother, Payam Kia). He obtained a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree at Uppsala University and have a job as an investigator at the Swedish Customs Administration.
Just a few months later, he was hired by the Security Police (SÄPO), which is also responsible for counterintelligence. After three and a half years there, in February 2011, Kia joined Sweden’s military intelligence service MUST, which also handles foreign intelligence. Swedish media reports that Peyman Kia, while at MUST, is even believed to have been part of KSI, the agency’s inner sanctum.
But shortly after joining MUST, the older Kia began spying for the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service. The spying continued throughout his tenure at MUST, in a subsequent re-employment at SÄPO, and even in a job as chief security officer at the Swedish Food Agency that he started in December 2015. After a while, he appears to have recruited Payam, who is accused of helping him in the logistics of his interactions with the GRU.
But the brothers were not as smart as they thought, as SÄPO had been watching them both for a long time. Already in 2015 and 2016, SÄPO investigated a potential mole and in 2017 the spy hunters had concluded that the trail led to Peyman Kia. For almost five years, they kept the two brothers under surveillance – and, most likely, concluded that the Swedish Food Agency’s relative lack of sensitive data made the risk worth it in order to build a case – and last year the two was arrested. Peyman had obtained access to numerous MUST and SÄPO documents outside his area of responsibility, which he and Payam are believed to have given to a GRU handler. Peyman also gave the Russians SÄPO’s entire personnel list.
The brothers were handsomely rewarded in gold and US dollars, which the couple and Peyman’s wife exchanged into Swedish kronor and deposited into their bank accounts. One of the telltale signs that something fishy was afoot was that the family was using cash for everyday purchases, an unusual act in a largely cashless country. The brothers’ communications describe meetings with “Rasski” and plans to flee to Canada.
Peyman was found to be keeping lots of classified documents at home; the authorities also seized USB sticks and other electronic equipment. So successful was the surveillance that the brothers had no idea they were about to be exposed, although Payam tried to dispose of a hard drive immediately before their arrest. The escape plans to Canada went unused. – The material they are believed to have given the Russians is incredibly sensitive, stated Magnus Ranstorp, strategic advisor at the Center for Community Security at the Norwegian Defense Academy. “And handing over SÄPO’s personnel directory is in itself a very serious matter. It’s like giving the Russians a list of who to target for recruitment.”
What role Iran played in the case is not yet publicly known. But, said Per Thunholm, a senior advisor at the Norwegian Defense Academy who specializes in intelligence studies, “it is well known that Iran and Russia are cooperating. And intelligence is a team sport. When it comes to intelligence operations, even the United States relies on friends.” When the Iranians broke CIA secret communicationsfor example, they passed that information to the Chinese, and the members of the Five Eyes – of which the US and UK are a part – share most aspects of intelligence.
In the past, Thunholm pointed out, Swedish intelligence services refrained from hiring people born in enemy countries out of concern that such officers could be vulnerable to recruitment by their home country or allies in their home country. Several other countries in the region still adhere to that policy, but in recent years Sweden has softened its approach. This entails an undeniable risk. “It’s not that people born in other countries are less trustworthy,” Thunholm said. “But there is a risk that they are more vulnerable to recruitment attempts – for example through pressure on their families in their home country.”
While it is possible that Russia used the background of the Kia brothers to identify them as targets for recruitment, the two men do appear to have been motivated by greed – the driving force behind moles from entirely homegrown backgrounds.
Still, the case is a wake-up call, showing how innovative Russian intelligence services are still recruiting. The fact that European countries today are home to a much larger number of foreign-born residents than just a couple of decades ago gives Russia (and China) access to a larger recruitment pool, especially since the countries of origin of these residents may have close ties to Russia. “José Assis Giammaria”, the alleged GRU officer arrested in Norway, worked at a local university as an academic focusing on gray zone aggression – a perfect platform from where you can reach out to a whole range of people in and outside Norway under the guise of academic interest.
But the opposite of this problem is that it is precisely those societies that often have the cultural background and language skills that are most needed for effective intelligence work. German Americans, for example, aided US intelligence during World War II, and Israel draws on the skills of countless foreign nationals who take Israeli citizenship.
Exactly how to handle foreign-born potential recruits is a long-standing debate within US intelligence, with Chinese Americans often having trouble passing safety tests for sensitive roles – issues that some argue have more to do with stereotypes than with the actual dangers. While former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee—a naturalized American citizen—was initially blamed to compromise US assets in China, and where convicted to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty to spying for China, the agency’s mass casualties in Iran and China appear to have been caused by the agency’s own carelessness online.
“There is no such thing as 100 percent certainty,” Thunholm said. “And not recruiting Russians, Chinese and Iranians would also be a risk. They have the skills and contacts we need. But you have to be aware of the risks.”
The Kia brothers risk up to 25 years in prison. Despite the overwhelming evidence against them, they deny the charges. Before the trial, many Swedes think back to Stig Bergling, the military officer who served in SÄPO and in 1979 caused Sweden’s biggest espionage scandal to date when he was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. Bergling received a long prison sentence but escaped during a conjugal visit and made his way to Moscow, a well-trodden path of moles in the West. Judging by Kia’s Canada plans, they had planned to flee Sweden, but not for Russia. Now they are most likely going to jail.