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Former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy has joined the controversial private intelligence firm Black Cube as a member of the board of directors. He will also head the committee to screen potential clients and act as a senior advisor on operational and intelligence matter, the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Sunday.
Halevy could also be elected as president of the company, the report added.
Halevy, 83, previously served as the head of the National Security Council, the Israeli ambbadador to the EU and the ninth director of Mossad. Halevy also served as the envoy and confidant of five prime ministers.
>> $6 billion of Iranian money: Why Israeli firm Black Cube really went after Obama’s team
Black Cube has been the subject of much attention in recent years, since being founded in 2010 by Avi Yanus and Dan Zorella, veterans of a secret Israeli intelligence unit.
Most of the firm’s employees come from the country’s spy community, including the Intelligence Corps, Mossad and the Shin Bet security service.
Last month, Haaretz revealed the reason for which the commercial spy firm, which has been marketed as the “private Mossad,” was targeting members of the Obama administration – the seizure of Iranian cash worldwide.
Black Cube said in response to the Haaretz report: “Black Cube policy is never to discuss its clients with any third party, and never to confirm or deny any speculation about its work. Black Cube only works to gather evidence in the biggest litigations in the world and not in other cases.”
Last May, the Observer newspaper and New Yorker magazine published articles on the espionage operation against senior Obama administration officials. At their center were Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes and national security adviser to the vice president, Colin Kahl. Black Cube had contacted both under different covers in order to discuss Iran. The operation failed and was exposed.
Last year, it was reported that disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein hired Black Cube to investigate his accusers of badual badault.
Black Cube made the headlines in Israel in 2013 when it was hired by former IDB chairman Nochi Dankner to dig up dirt on Moti Ben-Moshe and Eduardo Elsztain, who succeeded in wresting control of the IDB conglomerate from Dankner.
In 2014, Argentina wanted to hire Black Cube to collect intelligence on the U.S. hedge fund Elliott Management, which took Argentina to court to force it to pay up on bonds it has previously restructured.
In 2016, two Israeli Black Cube employees were arrested in Romania on hacking charges with the alleged aim of harbading and intimidating the country’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor.
Black Cube maintains offices in Tel Aviv. Visitors to the office are confronted with a plain black entrance with no writing on it.
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