Rabat- Moroccan diplomats and politicians are allegedly being spied upon by the DGSE, the French secret services, Moroccan media reported on Friday.
Rabat- Moroccan diplomats and politicians are allegedly being spied upon by the DGSE, the French secret services, Moroccan media reported on Friday.
According to the Moroccan daily newspaper Assabah in its Friday edition, a reporter’s investigation conducted in France reveals that that the DGSE routinely wiretaps Moroccan officials.
According to Assabah, the diplomatic crisis between Paris and Moscow on the Ukrainian question prompted the Russian secret services to bring to light a spying operation targeting Moroccan officials through an advanced program that detects all their messages and communications via media such as email, SMS, Skype, and WhatsApp.
Citing a survey conducted by the French newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur, Russian state media Sputnik, said the DGSE launched a €700 million program under the mandate of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
The program, which allowed French secret services to wiretap personalities from many countries around the world, is still believed to be operational, according to the same source.
The investigation conducted by Le Nouvel Observateur is based on the anonymous testimony of several current and former officials. It revealed that the French secret service intercepted the cable traffic from forty countries, including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, and the United States.
According to the same source, the French secret service continues to spy via submarine cables that create clandestine eavesdropping stations along the French coast.
Every day tens of millions of emails, SMS, exchanges on Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook, as well as phone numbers and IP addresses are used to automatically isolate the targeted personalities.
Additionally, the software identifies the voice, while another translates the discussions. The investigators also noted that these intelligence operations are not solely intended for the fight against terrorism, but also target diplomatic, political, and economic personalities.
