RUSSIAN GRU spies booted out of Holland in the wake of the Salisbury Novichok were caught with a laptop used to targeted the MH17 investigation, officials have confirmed. The Russian spooks, caught trying to hack into the global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW after the attack in the UK were found with a cyber hacking kit in the boot of their car.
Dutch defense minister Ank Bijleveld revealed at a press conference at The Hague today that one of the operative’s laptops contained evidence that Malaysian police and the country’s attorney general had been targeted in a bid to disrupt the MH17 probe.
The Malaysian Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down on July 17, 2014, over Ukraine by a Russian made Buk missile.
Speaking about Russia’s hacking attempts into the crash investigation today, the minister said: “We have been aware of the interest of Russian intelligence services in this investigation and have taken appropriate measures.”
She added that “We remain very alert about this.”
Minister Bijleveld said the hacking attempts on the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons were disrupted by authorities leading to the brazen spies to claim they were on holiday.
The four Russian intelligence officers were immediately expelled from the Netherlands, she said.
Officials said the spooks were using diplomatic passports and were met by a member of the Russian embassy at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.
The counter intelligence unit, who tried to destroy phones and removed litter from their hotel room, were carrying large amounts of cash on them while in Holland.
Vladimir Putin’s spy unit also tried to hack UK police in an attempt to further disrupt the probe into the Salisbury poisonings, intelligence chiefs revealed today.
Dutch officials said the Russian agents – named as Aleksei Morenets, Evgenii Serebriakov, Oleg Sotnikov, and Aleksey Minin, were booted out of the country after being arrested in the Hague.
The UK’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Peter Wilson said today: “With it’s aggressive cyber campaigns, we see the GRU trying to clean up Russia’s own mess.
“We are now stepping up our collective activity against malign operations, and specifically the GRU. We will shine a light on their activities.
“The GRU can only succeed in the shadows. When we see their activities, we must expose it to the light together.”
The US Department of Justice is set to publish charges against the four Russians this afternoon.
Senior government officials said the whole operation failed, and the team gleaned no information from any of the attempted hacks.
A British security official said: “Judging from their past form elsewhere, discrediting the investigation could well have been their intention.”
Nato allies said they “stood in solidarity with the decision to call our Russia on its blatent attempts to undermine international law and institutions”.
Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer who worked with MI6, and his daughter Yulia, were poisoned in Salisbury back in March, for which the British Government has formally said Vladimir Putin’s Russia is responsible for.
Today’s news comes after Britain formally pointed the finger at Russia’s GRU for 12 other cyber hacking operations in the last few years – from the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Democrats in America.
A report published today by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) laid bare the “indiscriminate and reckless cyber attacks” by the shadowy Russian spy agency that targeted political institutions, businesses, media and sport.
The report – compiled by the NCSC – found the GRU was behind the hacking of sensitive Hillary Clinton emails that helped Donald Trump win the 2016 presidency.
The spy agency said it the GRU was “almost certainly responsible”.
British spy chiefs accused Russia of a “flagrant violation of international law” with the attacks, which had cost national economies millions of pounds.
Russia has denied any involvement in the hacks – or the Salisbury poisoning. They called the accusations a “diabolical cocktail” of allegations.
When was the MH17 plane crash and what happened?
Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down on July 17, 2014, with the loss of 298 lives.
The dead included ten Britons, 193 Dutch, 38 Australians and 43 Malaysians. Eighty victims were children.
The Boeing 777-200ER left Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport at 12.31pm local time and was due to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 6.10am Malaysian time.