Iran Press/Iran news: Iran's Intelligence Ministry issued a statement on Monday, announcing the break-up of a network of 17 professional spies working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The 17 spies, many of them working in small cells or individually, were identified and arrested by the Intelligence Ministry in the second half of 2018 and the first three months of 2019.
The statement said all the spies arrested were employed in 'sensitive' Iranian government institutions, or were employed in the private sector, often as contractors or advisers, and were active in such fields as economic intelligence gathering, military, and cyber intelligence gathering, the civilian nuclear industry, and intelligence gathering about infrastructure.
The statement said the spies gathered classified information and categorized them and sometimes carried out technical-intelligence operations on the ground.
In the new documentary, released by the ministry, Iran's intelligence minister Mahmoud Alavi mentioned the biggest blow to the CIA by the Iranian intelligence in 2013, saying, "The Americans themselves have described it as an "intelligence scandal"."
According to the statement by Iran's Intelligence Ministry, some of the methods used to recruit (Iranian) spies for the CIA included: issuing of visas to the United States for those who were willing to work as spies, contacting scientists and engineers who had participated in an international conference outside of Iran, dispatching of special spying equipment to individuals inside Iran, and also contacting people via e-mail or social media sites and social networks.
The CIA taught its spies to use special equipment for 'secure communications' and taught them how to use advanced spying tools. They were also given false identity documents and special training to resist interrogation.
According to the statement, some European and Asian countries aided and abetted the CIA with its spying activities inside Iran.
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