The Turkish intelligence organization MIT, after almost a year of investigations, stalking, environmental surveys and the involvement of 200 agents, managed to have 7 people arrested on 15 October last year on charges of espionage in favor of the Israeli services of the Mossad. The goal of the secret partnership was to spy on Palestinian students residing in Turkey.
On Friday, the Turkish newspaper (Sabah published a long interview with one of the 15 alleged spies. The newspaper, which is politically aligned with the president's government Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, referred to the alleged spy using his initials "MAS“, Stating that he is a Turkish citizen recruited by the Mossad. The spy said during the interview that she was first contacted in December 2018 by "an agent called AZ" via the WhatsApp phone application. After providing this person with information about Turkish universities, funds were sent to him via Western Union wire transfers. Other times he was paid by a man in an Istanbul market, after showing him his ID card, along with a receipt that was sent to him from AZ
Eventually, MAS was instructed to travel to Switzerland, after obtaining a visa from a company called European Student Guidance Center. The Sabah newspaper claims that MAS's trip to Switzerland was paid for by the Mossad. While there, MAS met with his alleged coordinators, who taught him how to use strong cryptography for sending documents and other information via secure email applications.
According to Sabah, other Turks belonging to the group of spies also met their leaders abroad, mainly in Switzerland and Croatia. Most of them were paid with cryptocurrency, money transfers with international wire transfers and sometimes with precious jewelry or foreign currency.
However, the popular Turkish newspaper Sabah did not explain how its reporters were able to interview MAS after his arrest by the Turkish authorities while Istanbul has not made any official statements about these arrests.
Last Friday Israeli public figures, one among them Ram Ben Barak, former deputy director of Mossad and current chair of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that "none of the names published in Turkey belonged to Israeli spies". Ben-Barak also questioned the professionalism and capabilities of Turkish counter-intelligence.