



A few months ago, Ann Norris, a former State Department official, received a strange e-mail. The production company, Shell Productions, was asking for help on writing the script of a film about the White House. "It will be," they wrote to her, "something between 'All the President's Men' and the West Wing series".





Shell Productions was never existed. It was a showcase company of Black Cube - a private information company made up of former Mossad agents and other Israeli secret services. Their goal was to collect information about personal life of Norris' husband, Ben Rhodes, who was former Barack Obama's adviser and key man in the agreement for the Iran nuclear program.





According to The Observer, the Black Cube was hired by Trump himself to smear the protagonists of the deal and thus justify the withdrawal of the US.









The Black Cube had come for the first time in the light of international publicity when it was hired by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein to smear women who accused him for rape, as well as journalists covering the case. He even revealed that the man who brought him in contact with the Black Cube was the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.





Today, it is giant company operating in 60 countries and has offices in some of the world's largest capitals. It is considered to be dominant in a market of at least ten billion dollars, which balances between the state (and/or the parallel state) and the private sector.





As Black Cube executives revealed in Forbes Israeli version, its agents are using all means to gather information that their customers require: in some cases they need to create complex networks with showcase companies. In others, it is enough to throw an agent of the opposite sex to their victim, to extract the information - it's an old technique used by Mossad also against Mordechai Vanunu, who revealed Israel's secret nuclear program.





The main advantage of the company, as is the case with companies of mercenaries, like Blackwater, is that it even allows governments to carry out dirty missions without being subject to the consequences of international law. The company's executives, of course, claim that all their actions are legal, as the data they collect should often be brought to the court. But the keyword is "often". That is, not always.





A couple of years ago, two Black Cube agents were arrested in Romania. Monitoring systems, photographic equipment and devices for DNA testing were found in their hotel room. According to local media, the target of the company was the head of the Anti-Corruption Directorate, Laura Codruta Kovesi, who, according to the Guardian newspaper, was “bringing in the scalps" of several corrupt politicians accused of bribery. Despite the fact that Black Cube agents were facing serious charges, including cyber attacks against Kovesi and her relatives, the Romanian authorities imposed an extremely small penalty on them. Shortly afterwards they were free to return to their homeland.





Nevertheless, Black Cube usually manages to go unnoticed, escaping the radar of prosecution authorities and carry out missions that can change the fate of entire countries.





In 2011, a year after its foundation, the company helped the baron of the British real estate, Vincent Tchenguiz, to be relieved from the accusation that he was behind the collapse of the Kaupthing bank, which drifted down the whole Icelandic economy in 2008. The data collected by Black Cube for those who accused him allowed Tchenguiz not only to get out of prison, but also to sue for nearly half a billion dollars the British corruption service, which had ordered his arrest.





Black Cube is believed to represent the "future" of intelligence companies that are spreading around the world. A future just as dark as the secret services, but much more ... private.





Key parts from the article ‘Mossad Inc.’ by Aris Chatzistefanou, translated from the original source:



