Australia’s intelligence chief on Wednesday spoke for the first time of a foiled foreign interference plot, sounding a warning ahead of the country’s upcoming elections.
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Director-General Mike Burgess said the case involved a wealthy person with “deep connections to a foreign government.”
“I’ll call this person ‘the puppeteer,’” he said during an annual threat assessment speech.
Photo: EPA-EFE
He described the scheme as “like a foreign interference start-up” in which the “puppeteer” funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to an employee, who set about trying to influence an election.
Burgess did not specify which election was targeted.
The employee allegedly identified and targeted promising political candidates, who knew nothing of the scheme.
“The aim was not just to get the candidates into positions of power, but also to generate a sense of appreciation, obligation and indebtedness that could subsequently be exploited,” Burgess said.
The scheme might have seen allies placed into the offices of successful candidates, who could have both influenced the politician and filtered sensitive information back to the foreign government, if the intelligence agency had not foiled the plot.
“This year — a federal election year — we need to be particularly on guard against foreign political interference,” Burgess said.
He also raised concerns about the growing threat of right-wing extremism in Australia, particularly among minors.
He said that minors represented 15 percent of the agency’s new counterterrorism investigations last year, up from 2 to 3 percent previously.
“As a nation, we need to reflect on why some teenagers are hanging Nazi flags and portraits of the Christchurch killer on their bedroom walls, and why others are sharing beheading videos,” he said.
Burgess also said that the agency was tracking foreign spies trying to make connections through dating apps, including Tinder, Bumble and Hinge.
“My message for any potential victims on these sites is a familiar one — if it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” he said.
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