Federal Intelligence Service: Dubious employment of a private spy

Internal documents show how a private individual paid by the Federal Intelligence Service secretly attempted to exert political influence.

“Contrary to internal rules”: headquarters of the Federal Intelligence Service in Bern.

Peter Klaunzer / Keystone

The Federal Intelligence Service (NDB) has grown steadily in recent years. From around 230 full-time positions in 2010 to 430 today. But that’s not all: The NDB also employed external consultants – under dubious conditions. The first case came to light two years ago: the then head of the secret service, Jean-Philippe Gaudin, had commissioned a private individual to set up a network of contacts for him and to provide him with information. The consultant received 5,000 francs a month for this. This contract violated internal instructions.

The Federal Audit Office was then called in. It investigated whether there were any other “problematic contracts of this kind” in the FDB – and promptly found them, as has only just become known. A second contract emerged under which an external consultant was employed by the FDB from 2010 to 2018. His very general mandate included advice and expertise in combating terrorism as well as “exclusive and timely forwarding of confidential and security-relevant information from the ND community to the FDB”. These remarkably vague activities are set out in the contract between the FDB and the person, which the “NZZ am Sonntag” received on the basis of the Freedom of Information Act. “ND community” is an open term that covers people in the intelligence service environment.

Almost 300,000 francs in wages

The “advisor” was paid 40,000 francs per year and received a total of 280,000 francs during his seven-year tenure. It is not known exactly what the money was used for. However, it is officially recorded that the man hardly brought anything useful to light. At least, that is how the NDB’s deputy, Jürg Bühler, assessed it in a letter to the financial control authority last year. Bühler’s assessment of the private spy operation is devastating: a contract was entered into that did not meet the requirements of such a contract at the time or today, the payments to the man were “contrary to the NDB’s internal rules and bypassed existing reporting obligations”, and the man “did not provide any comprehensible, meaningful services”.

Excerpt from the memo prepared by the FDB for Federal Councillor Viola Amherd on August 11, 2022.

NDB

Who this person was is not clear from the documents, some of which are blacked out. Other aspects of the case are also explosive. For example, the man, who was employed by the NDB, apparently regularly attended a “round table” of parliamentarians, cantonal politicians and federal and cantonal officials from the security policy field. One fact that has not been made public in this context – what this is about is blacked out – “could attract great interest from the media”. The service wrote this in a memo informing Defense Minister Viola Amherd about the “potentially sensitive previous incident”.

Political influence

The private spy was an active participant in these meetings. According to internal NDB documentation, his activities appear to have been “at least partly aimed at exerting political influence.” A private spy commissioned by the NDB who attends meetings of security politicians and officials and exerts “political influence”? That does not correspond to the service’s legal mandate and represents a significant reputational risk for the agency. What exactly the man did remains a mystery: According to the NDB, it is not possible to make a final assessment of what this political influence looked like due to “inadequate documentation.”

“This case was grossly negligent”

The NDB leadership is also aware of the explosive nature of the case. All the departments involved are trying to talk about an isolated case. The NDB director at the time, Markus Seiler, “may not have been informed about the mandate,” the memo states. A former member of the management board acted without the director’s knowledge, the NDB says today. Seiler did, however, once ask the NDB whether anyone knew this person. He was told, in essence, “that this was a person who was better on your side than against you.” However, Seiler was not told that the man was in the service’s pay.

In his letter to the Financial Control Authority, NDB Vice President Bühler also stated that the NDB could not find any other comparable cases in its documents. The case had been sufficiently investigated and the consequences drawn. When asked, the NDB stressed that the service would no longer award such mandates in the future: “The two cases mentioned are the only ones we know of. There is consensus that this should not happen again.”

Stefan Müller-Altermatt, the president of the parliamentary audit delegation, agrees. “This case was grossly negligent and must not happen again.” The Solothurn-based Centre National Councillor says that the intelligence service has been given appropriate recommendations. And they will also check whether the NDB is complying with them.

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