Two French spies found dead in last 2 months

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Secret agent discovered dead in Paris in pool of vomit found to possess encryption key and classified documents

newsweek.com
Secret agent discovered dead in Paris in pool of vomit found to possess encryption key and classified documents
By Callum Paton On 5/8/19 at 9:30 AM EDT
3 minutes
Authorities in France have opened an investigation into the death of an Italian secret agent in Paris, identified only as Massimo I. He was found dead in a hotel on Monday, lying in a pool of vomit with a bloody wound on his chin.

The French magazine Le Point reported that French police had recovered an encrypted security key from a safe inside the hotel room being rented by the member of the Italian intelligence services. Agence France Presse reported classified documents were also found inside the safe that contained several USB sticks and the equivalent of $2,239 in 20 euro notes.

The Italian Embassy in Paris said it believes the 50-year-old secret agent died of natural causes. The gaping wound on his chin may have been caused during a fall, investigators said.

Anonymous sources confirmed to AFP that Massimo I. was a "high-ranking civil servant in Italian intelligence." A business card found on his body identified him as working for the Presidency of Italy’s council of ministers, headed by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Both Italy’s internal and external security agencies fall under Conte’s remit. It is not clear which of Italy’s many intelligence services Massimo I. worked for.

The Italian secret agent was discovered when emergency services were called to his room in the early hours of Monday morning. At 1:30 a.m. firefighters attempted to resuscitate him but were unsuccessful.

Massimo I. had checked into the hotel in Paris’ Montmartre district, in the French capital’s 18th Arrondissement, on May 3. The initial investigation revealed the Italian spy arrived in Paris from Rome, flying into the city’s Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle Airport.

The opening stages of inquiries have been handed over from local police and the technical and scientific police to be led by the judicial police, as Paris’ public prosecutor opens an official investigation into the cause of death in the case.

Just over one month ago, Daniel Forestier, a former French intelligence agent, was discovered shot in the head and heart in the French Alps. The 57-year-old had been shot five times and was discovered in a car park in the town of Ballaison, near lake Geneva on the border with Switzerland, AFP reported.

Forestier, a spy with the DGSE, the French equivalent of the CIA, was charged in 2018 with criminal conspiracy and possession of explosives in connection with a plot to murder an exiled Congolese general.





@88m3 @dtownreppin214 things poppin

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

and heres the other french spy they found dead:


French ex-spy suspected of Congo-Brazzaville plot shot dead in Alps
theguardian.com
French ex-spy suspected of Congo-Brazzaville plot shot dead in Alps
Kim Willsher
4-5 minutes
Daniel Forestier had been investigated over alleged plot to assassinate opposition figure




Forestier’s body was found in a parking area off a little-used road in Haute-Savoie. Photograph: Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty Images
The body of a former French intelligence agent linked to an assassination plot has been found riddled with bullets in a layby in the Alps.

Daniel Forestier was discovered in a pool of blood in a parking area off a little-used road in Haute-Savoie near Lake Léman. Police said the killing was a “professional job”, and a postmortem revealed he had been shot five times.

The killing of Forestier, 57, author of several spy novels, came six months after he had been officially put under investigation for his suspected role in a plot to kill an opponent of the regime of Congo-Brazzaville’s president, Denis Sassou-Nguesso.

Police said Forestier had previously served for 14 years as a member of France’s counter-espionage agency, the DGSE, the French equivalent of MI6, but did not give dates when he was an operative. He was reported to have been a member of a special military unit tasked with top-secret “sensitive operations”.

France Bleu radio in Haute-Savoie said Forestier lived in the village of Lucinges, nine miles (15km) from where his body was found, with his wife and two children and had served as a local councillor until he was put under investigation last September.

The public prosecutor said the killing was probably a settling of scores. “There’s almost no doubt about it,” Philippe Toccanier said. Forestier had been shot five times in the thorax and the head, he added.

The Lucinges mayor said everyone in the village of 1,640 residents knew Forestier had worked for the country’s intelligence service.

“He’d written several spy novels, but he never gave us any details of what he did,” Jean-Luc Soulat told the local radio station. “He was very well settled here. He ran a bar-tobacconist here and only 15 days ago he helped me organise the opening of a village hall.”

He said when Forestier resigned from the local council last September he said it was for “personal reasons that he would explain one day. Now I understand why he resigned and I think it was because he wanted to protect the community.”

In a plot worthy of a John Le Carré novel, Forestier and a second former intelligence operative were put under investigation for allegedly planning to kill Gen Ferdinand Mbaou, a senior opposition figure in Congo-Brazzaville. Both were indicted by an investigating magistrate last autumn for “participating in a criminal organisation” and “holding explosives” .

Le Monde reported that Forestier had admitted being part of a group formed to kill Mbaou, who was living in Val d’Oise, north of Paris, but told investigators after carrying out reconnaissance he realised the plot was “not possible”. The paper said Forestier later denied being involved in any criminal activity.

Mbaou, 62, was head of the presidential guard to Sassou-Nguesso’s predecessor, Pascal Lissouba, but fled the country when Lissouba was overthrown in a coup in 1997. He has been a fierce critic of the Sassou-Nguesso regime since and still has a bullet lodged near his heart from a previous assassination attempt. He told Paris Match last year he only learned of the plot to kill him when he read about it in the French newspapers.

“I know why they want to kill me. I was warned and also I received threats in text messages. I tried to warn the [security] services but they didn’t do anything,” Mbaou said.

 

[88m3]

Things aren't great between France and Italy right now but I doubt they've resorted to offing each other

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

i'm not the only one who read "two french fries found dead"

 

[Strapped]

Just maybe they should of not been spying