Black Cube: How did an Israeli intelligence agency land contracts worth £1.5 million in Romania?

In the spring of 2016, conspiracy theorists had a field day. What was usually regarded as outlandish ideas spewed out by tipsy uncles over Christmas dinner turned out to be 100% true. The Director of the National Anti-Corruption Agency in Romania (DNA), Laura Codruta Kovesi, had been spied on by employees of Black Cube — an Israeli intelligence company that provides legal and intelligence services to high-profile companies, governments and individuals.

What happened?

The Direction for the Investigation of Organised Criminal Infractions and Terrorism (DIICOT) arrested two people affiliated with the operation. In a press release published on April 6th, 2016, DIICOT highlights the main motive of the arrest, namely the means used by Black Cube to carry out the operation, not its existence as a whole.

“In March 2016, Dan Zorella and Avi Yanus […], who had management roles at an Israeli company, Black Cube, with offices both in Tel Aviv/Israel and in London/UK, together with several other employees of the firm, including the defendants Weiner Ron and Geclowicz David, initiated and constituted a criminal group with the purpose of committing several crimes, i.e. harassment and digital crimes, such as making multiple threatening telephone calls meant to inspire fear, as well as phishing attacks meant to steal login credentials and, later on, to compromise e-mail accounts. These activities were followed by the violation of the secret of correspondence via the unlawful copying and transfer of these accounts’ content. The objective of the group’s criminal activity was to compromise the image of the DNA chief prosecutor in Romania by trying to find “activities of corruption.””

Both Weiner and Geclowicz received suspended sentences of 2 years and 8 months in jail, and have returned to Israel after the conclusion of the case in early 2017. They are also under surveillance for a period of 3 years and are prohibited from communicating with the injured parties — LCK and her family. However, when one of the top managers of Black Cube, Dan Zorella, gave a deposition for DIICOT, he provided further information regarding the company’s mission in Romania. They had apparently been commissioned by Daniel Dragomir, a former SRI officer (Romania’s intelligence agency), and had been led to believe that this mission had been backed by the highest political powers in the country, including President Klaus Iohannis. They also denied any wrongdoings and claimed to have been working under contract.

Prosecutors indicted Daniel Dragomir in the same case. He had been the Director of the informational and operational sector under the General Direction for the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism at SRI. Since then he was in jail for six months and was later put under house arrest while also being investigated in another corruption case.

About Black Cube

What do we know about the company that spied on LCK? Black Cube is led by former generals and colonels in Israeli espionage such as the late Meir Dagan, who before acting as honorary president of Black Cube had directed the Mossad, Israel’s main spy shop. With offices in Tel Aviv, London and Paris, Black Cube supports law firms, financial institutions, the public sector, multinational corporations and high net-worth individuals with litigations, advancing business interests and cyber-crime challenges.

Kovesi’s surveillance was not Black Cube’s first case in Romania, nor was it the first time the company had targeted DNA. The contract signed with Daniel Dragomir in February 2016 had a value of £900,000 and was the second contract signed between Black Cube and a Romanian beneficiary. The first one was signed in March 2015 with businessman Dan Adamescu’s Nova Group, for £600,000. Even if he denied all charges, one of Romania’s main news agencies, Hotnews, published the actual copy of the contract.

The contract between Black Cube and Dan Adamescu’s The Nova Group

Dan Adamescu had been convicted of bribing judges to obtain favourable solutions for his companies in a number of insolvency cases. The collaboration with Black Cube aimed to bring proof to determine DNA to drop charges against him through a media campaign that would discredit DNA and allege that the institution had targeted Adamescu on the orders of certain politicians such as Victor Ponta, the prime minister of Romania at the time, as a result of incriminatory information published by the Romania Libera newspaper owned by Adamescu.

In the end, Black Cube’s efforts did not amount to much. Dan Adamescu was convicted to 4 years and 4 months of jail by the High Court of Cassation and Justice. In 2013 he and his son, Alexander Adamescu, had paid 23,000 RON (£4,500) to two judges at the Bucharest Tribunal so they would enable them to benefit from insolvency claims initiated for some of the companies that belonged to Dan Adamescu. This only fuelled the family’s PR efforts, both nationally and internationally. The Adamescus claimed to be political victims of the current regime, especially after Dan Adamescu passed away in prison in 2017.

It’s unclear whether the second contract was also tied to Adamescu. What we do know is that Dragomir simply did not have access to those funds — prosecutors had already frozen his accounts. Journalists speculated that the £900,000 came from a collective of businessmen keen on taking the DNA down a notch.

The most interesting aspect of the case however is the sheer amount of money involved. Any industry insider will tell you that the work carried out by Black Cube was simply not worth it. The infamous dossier compiled by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele on Trump’s business activities only fetched between $12,000 and $15,000 a month. Which leads many to believe that the contracts had covert objectives that were not carried out — as the DNA swooped in and arrested the 2 Black Cube employees. Some have suggested that the Israelis — who describe themselves as “providing creative intelligence — were hired not just to blackmail Kovesi, but also to extract corruption-tinged businessmen from the country and provide them with safe haven in third countries. While this might seem farfetched to some, as we have pointed out in a previous post, Sebastian Ghita, a businessmen-cum-politician-cum-media mogul, was helped by unknown actors to flee Romania and take refuge in neighbouring Serbia. Despite being tailed by law enforcement, Ghita managed to somehow disappear for nearly 5 months before being apprehended by the Serbian police on a fluke. Similarly, Puiu Popoviciu was nowhere to be found after he was found guilty by the DNA and is currently suspected of hiding out in the U.S. or the U.K. Perhaps Adamescu had a similar scenario in mind?

Declarations notwithstanding, the large amounts of money involved underline the importance of the operation for the beneficiary and raise questions as to why they deemed these efforts worthy of such an investment. We can’t know for sure, but it definitely sounds like the kind of spy story that Hollywood would be interested in.