Indian intelligence Agencies : News & Updates

This does seem to have an espionage angle to it :

Two Military-Grade Aircraft Launching Gears From US ‘Mysteriously’ Land At Gujarat’s Mundra Port: Report

by IANS - Dec 25 2019, 4:14 pm
The_port_of_Mundra_in_Gujarat.jpg

The Mundra port in Gujarat. (Wikimedia Commons)

Two military-grade aircraft launching gears weighing 10790.90 kg shipped from the US mysteriously landed in "empty" containers at Mundra port in Gujarat on 20 December. The investigating agencies are clueless how these came to India.

Security sources said the military grade aircraft launching gears found at the Mundra port are manufactured by only two corporate giants, Boeing (based in the US) and Airbus (headquartered in Europe). The shipment came from the US, sources said.

Sources said prime facie it appears that it is an attempt to smuggle military grade aircraft launching gears in India or a matter of corporate espionage.

Sources stated that earlier there have been a few cases where Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and a few corporate companies ordered spare parts and even machines from the US and these went missing and were never traced.

"These two military-grade aircraft launching gears were shipped from New York port on November 8. The consignment was booked by US-based company DHL Global Forwarding and was meant for Royal Saudi Land Forces," said a senior officer in Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs.

IANS has reviewed the copy of the shipment ordered from the US.

The aircraft launching gear was shipped for an address: Prince Sultan Road, HWY 156 Jizan Saudi Arabia.

The Kyoto Express ship, owned by a carrier owned by Hapag-Lloyd Aktiengesellschaft, was carrying the consignment.

The consignment was not offloaded at Jeddah port and came to Mundra in Gujarat, and surprisingly, the two containers were marked empty, sources said.

The vessel had docked at five ports, including Pakistan's Karachi, and came to Mundra port and dropped hundreds of empty containers. While checking all the empty containers, which were being shifted to the yard, the customs officials found these containers "tagged empty" but contained aircraft launching gears.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

Two Military-Grade Aircraft Launching Gears From US ‘Mysteriously’ Land At Gujarat’s Mundra Port: Report
 
This does seem to have an espionage angle to it :

Two Military-Grade Aircraft Launching Gears From US ‘Mysteriously’ Land At Gujarat’s Mundra Port: Report

by IANS - Dec 25 2019, 4:14 pm
The_port_of_Mundra_in_Gujarat.jpg

The Mundra port in Gujarat. (Wikimedia Commons)

Two military-grade aircraft launching gears weighing 10790.90 kg shipped from the US mysteriously landed in "empty" containers at Mundra port in Gujarat on 20 December. The investigating agencies are clueless how these came to India.

Security sources said the military grade aircraft launching gears found at the Mundra port are manufactured by only two corporate giants, Boeing (based in the US) and Airbus (headquartered in Europe). The shipment came from the US, sources said.

Sources said prime facie it appears that it is an attempt to smuggle military grade aircraft launching gears in India or a matter of corporate espionage.

Sources stated that earlier there have been a few cases where Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and a few corporate companies ordered spare parts and even machines from the US and these went missing and were never traced.

"These two military-grade aircraft launching gears were shipped from New York port on November 8. The consignment was booked by US-based company DHL Global Forwarding and was meant for Royal Saudi Land Forces," said a senior officer in Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs.

IANS has reviewed the copy of the shipment ordered from the US.

The aircraft launching gear was shipped for an address: Prince Sultan Road, HWY 156 Jizan Saudi Arabia.

The Kyoto Express ship, owned by a carrier owned by Hapag-Lloyd Aktiengesellschaft, was carrying the consignment.

The consignment was not offloaded at Jeddah port and came to Mundra in Gujarat, and surprisingly, the two containers were marked empty, sources said.

The vessel had docked at five ports, including Pakistan's Karachi, and came to Mundra port and dropped hundreds of empty containers. While checking all the empty containers, which were being shifted to the yard, the customs officials found these containers "tagged empty" but contained aircraft launching gears.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

Two Military-Grade Aircraft Launching Gears From US ‘Mysteriously’ Land At Gujarat’s Mundra Port: Report
I sincerely hope USA isn't helping PAF maintain its aircraft fleet given the US sanctions on Pakistan.
 
I sincerely hope USA isn't helping PAF maintain its aircraft fleet given the US sanctions on Pakistan.
From what I understand this landing gear is of a large aircraft(passenger/transport) :
1577281423555.png


I could be wrong but I don't think Pakistan has overhauling facilities of the rear landing gear of military transporters. They do it in the US. So just sending over the gear to Pakistan won't help.

Either way, we were making a transport aircraft weren't we ? RTA or something ? This landing gear can be very beneficial to us in that endevour, the landing gear design of a transport aircraft has large implications on the overall design of the aircraft. I remember issues with Tejas landing gear being a bit overweight. This could be very beneficial too us.

Who knows maybe it was our guys that did it.
 
This does seem to have an espionage angle to it :

Two Military-Grade Aircraft Launching Gears From US ‘Mysteriously’ Land At Gujarat’s Mundra Port: Report

by IANS - Dec 25 2019, 4:14 pm
The_port_of_Mundra_in_Gujarat.jpg

The Mundra port in Gujarat. (Wikimedia Commons)

Two military-grade aircraft launching gears weighing 10790.90 kg shipped from the US mysteriously landed in "empty" containers at Mundra port in Gujarat on 20 December. The investigating agencies are clueless how these came to India.

Security sources said the military grade aircraft launching gears found at the Mundra port are manufactured by only two corporate giants, Boeing (based in the US) and Airbus (headquartered in Europe). The shipment came from the US, sources said.

Sources said prime facie it appears that it is an attempt to smuggle military grade aircraft launching gears in India or a matter of corporate espionage.

Sources stated that earlier there have been a few cases where Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and a few corporate companies ordered spare parts and even machines from the US and these went missing and were never traced.

"These two military-grade aircraft launching gears were shipped from New York port on November 8. The consignment was booked by US-based company DHL Global Forwarding and was meant for Royal Saudi Land Forces," said a senior officer in Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs.

IANS has reviewed the copy of the shipment ordered from the US.

The aircraft launching gear was shipped for an address: Prince Sultan Road, HWY 156 Jizan Saudi Arabia.

The Kyoto Express ship, owned by a carrier owned by Hapag-Lloyd Aktiengesellschaft, was carrying the consignment.

The consignment was not offloaded at Jeddah port and came to Mundra in Gujarat, and surprisingly, the two containers were marked empty, sources said.

The vessel had docked at five ports, including Pakistan's Karachi, and came to Mundra port and dropped hundreds of empty containers. While checking all the empty containers, which were being shifted to the yard, the customs officials found these containers "tagged empty" but contained aircraft launching gears.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

Two Military-Grade Aircraft Launching Gears From US ‘Mysteriously’ Land At Gujarat’s Mundra Port: Report

 
Gautam how would you feel if you did all the hard work finding contacts , planning means to snuggle certain goods and then successful do so but to realise many years later much to your chagrin that your bitter rival has been following your step without anybody being wise and to add salt to your wounds , you have to face accusations of smuggling from everyone including your dear rival :p
 
Karachi-bound ship held in Gujarat over cargo that can be used in missile launch

Updated: Feb 17, 2020 05:13 IST
By Shishir Gupta
Hindustan Times, New Delhi

According to people familiar with the matter, the ship, intercepted on February 3, is undergoing a detailed inspection at Kandla Port in Gujarat.
mundra-photo-worker-rest-cargo-front-ship_b7489450-5115-11ea-b246-02cea10d1852.jpg

Worker rest in front of a cargo ship at a port in Gujarat. (Reuters File Photo)

The spectre of nuclear proliferation between China and its all-weather ally Pakistan was revived this month when Indian Customs officials detained a ship -- bearing a Hong Kong flag and bound for Port Qasim in Karachi -- for wrongly declaring an autoclave, which can be used in the launch process of ballistic missiles, as an industrial dryer.

According to people familiar with the matter, the ship, intercepted on February 3, is undergoing a detailed inspection at Kandla Port in Gujarat. They added that the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which has been examining the ship, is sending a second team of nuclear scientists this week to check the large autoclave on board.

The ship, which left Jiangyin port on the Yangtze river in China’s Jiangsu province, dropped anchor at Kandla, and was bound for Port Qasim. The detention of the vessel has been brought to the notice of the highest levels of national security establishment and the intelligence agencies.

Though national security officials and the external affairs ministry declined to share details of the ship, HT has learnt that it is named Da Cui Yun and carries a Hong Kong flag. The vessel was intercepted on the basis of intelligence tip-off, and one DRDO team has already inspected the 18x4-metre autoclave on board. The autoclave – a pressure chamber to carry out various industrial and scientific processes -- has been prima facie certified as a “dual-use” item, which means it can be used for civilian and military purposes.

A second high-level DRDO team of missile scientists will go to Kandla port on Monday to further examine the cargo, according to an official who asked not to be named. If this team upholds the findings of the first team, Customs will seize the cargo, and charge the vessel and its owners for violations of Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies (Scomet) export regulations.

According to marinetraffic.com, which maps the movement of all listed ships, the Port Mohammed Bin Qasim-bound Da Cui Yun left Jiangyin Port on January 17, 2020, and has been moored at Kandla since February 3, 2020. The 28,341-tonne dead weight vessel measures 166.5x27.4 metres and was built in 2011 in the home port of Hong Kong. Port Qasim is in Karachi, Sindh, where the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco), responsible for Pakistan ballistic missile programme, is based.

Indian security officials are concerned because the nuclear nexus between Pakistan and China dates back to 1989, when Islamabad signed a deal with Beijing to purchase 34 solid-fuel M-11 ballistic missiles. The M-11s, which can deliver a 500kg payload over 300km, are at the core of Pakistan’s ballistic missile capability with all its other delivery platforms a derivative of the Chinese weapon. Around the same period, Pakistan purchased 12 to 25 liquid-fuel No-Dong ballistic missiles from North Korea despite not being a signatory to any proliferation regime. The No-Dong system can deliver a 700-1,000kg payload over 1,000-1,300km.

Experts said the autoclave episode revives memory of North Korean ship Ku Wol San, which was seized at Kandla at the height of the 1999 Kargil war. The Pakistan-bound ship had wrongly declared missile components, metal casings and Scud missile manuals as water-purification equipment. The story was first reported by HT at that time.

In the case of Da Cui Yun, DRDO investigators have so far found that the industrial autoclave is used for manufacturing composite lining for the solid-fuel ballistic missiles. The ballistic missile is propelled by a solid-fuel-based booster in its critical Phase I. For this, the solid fuel is placed in a steel alloy casing, which needs a composite material liner to withstand the high pressure and high temperatures during the launch process. An autoclave is used to manufacture sheets of silica under controlled temperature and pressure, so that they can be used as liners.

Karachi-bound ship held in Gujarat over cargo that can be used in missile launch
 
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Karachi-bound ship held in Gujarat over cargo that can be used in missile launch

Updated: Feb 17, 2020 05:13 IST
By Shishir Gupta
Hindustan Times, New Delhi

According to people familiar with the matter, the ship, intercepted on February 3, is undergoing a detailed inspection at Kandla Port in Gujarat.
mundra-photo-worker-rest-cargo-front-ship_b7489450-5115-11ea-b246-02cea10d1852.jpg

Worker rest in front of a cargo ship at a port in Gujarat. (Reuters File Photo)

The spectre of nuclear proliferation between China and its all-weather ally Pakistan was revived this month when Indian Customs officials detained a ship -- bearing a Hong Kong flag and bound for Port Qasim in Karachi -- for wrongly declaring an autoclave, which can be used in the launch process of ballistic missiles, as an industrial dryer.

According to people familiar with the matter, the ship, intercepted on February 3, is undergoing a detailed inspection at Kandla Port in Gujarat. They added that the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which has been examining the ship, is sending a second team of nuclear scientists this week to check the large autoclave on board.

The ship, which left Jiangyin port on the Yangtze river in China’s Jiangsu province, dropped anchor at Kandla, and was bound for Port Qasim. The detention of the vessel has been brought to the notice of the highest levels of national security establishment and the intelligence agencies.

Though national security officials and the external affairs ministry declined to share details of the ship, HT has learnt that it is named Da Cui Yun and carries a Hong Kong flag. The vessel was intercepted on the basis of intelligence tip-off, and one DRDO team has already inspected the 18x4-metre autoclave on board. The autoclave – a pressure chamber to carry out various industrial and scientific processes -- has been prima facie certified as a “dual-use” item, which means it can be used for civilian and military purposes.

A second high-level DRDO team of missile scientists will go to Kandla port on Monday to further examine the cargo, according to an official who asked not to be named. If this team upholds the findings of the first team, Customs will seize the cargo, and charge the vessel and its owners for violations of Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies (Scomet) export regulations.

According to marinetraffic.com, which maps the movement of all listed ships, the Port Mohammed Bin Qasim-bound Da Cui Yun left Jiangyin Port on January 17, 2020, and has been moored at Kandla since February 3, 2020. The 28,341-tonne dead weight vessel measures 166.5x27.4 metres and was built in 2011 in the home port of Hong Kong. Port Qasim is in Karachi, Sindh, where the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco), responsible for Pakistan ballistic missile programme, is based.

Indian security officials are concerned because the nuclear nexus between Pakistan and China dates back to 1989, when Islamabad signed a deal with Beijing to purchase 34 solid-fuel M-11 ballistic missiles. The M-11s, which can deliver a 500kg payload over 300km, are at the core of Pakistan’s ballistic missile capability with all its other delivery platforms a derivative of the Chinese weapon. Around the same period, Pakistan purchased 12 to 25 liquid-fuel No-Dong ballistic missiles from North Korea despite not being a signatory to any proliferation regime. The No-Dong system can deliver a 700-1,000kg payload over 1,000-1,300km.

Experts said the autoclave episode revives memory of North Korean ship Ku Wol San, which was seized at Kandla at the height of the 1999 Kargil war. The Pakistan-bound ship had wrongly declared missile components, metal casings and Scud missile manuals as water-purification equipment. The story was first reported by HT at that time.

In the case of Da Cui Yun, DRDO investigators have so far found that the industrial autoclave is used for manufacturing composite lining for the solid-fuel ballistic missiles. The ballistic missile is propelled by a solid-fuel-based booster in its critical Phase I. For this, the solid fuel is placed in a steel alloy casing, which needs a composite material liner to withstand the high pressure and high temperatures during the launch process. An autoclave is used to manufacture sheets of silica under controlled temperature and pressure, so that they can be used as liners.

Karachi-bound ship held in Gujarat over cargo that can be used in missile launch


 
We need a Cordon And Search operation in NE DELHI and wherever these Criminals
Are Hiding

This should be done over the next Several
Weeks and Months
 

Confiscated Chinese 'Dryer' At Kandla Port Meant For Pakistani Nuke Missile: Report

The Development Has Not Only Exposed The Sinister Nuclear Bond Between China And Pakistan But Also Raised Concerns Over Nuclear Proliferation.

By: Surabhi Pandey | Updated on: 04 Mar 2020, 09:50:46 AM
1583321264681.png



New Delhi: It is the plot straight out of a suspense thriller! A cargo ship, suspicious large machine, Bond-like intelligence tip-off and everything in between. Should Bollywood decide to make a movie on real-life drama involving India’s defence/intel officers after ‘URI: The Surgical Strike’, it can be this!

A Chinese cargo ship that was reportedly carrying an ‘industrial dryer’ – a large pressure chamber – turned out be a component of Pakistan’s nuclear missile! The news was reported by The Hindustan Times on Wednesday. The scientists and researchers at the DRDO have finally confirmed what the intelligence agencies were suspecting so far. The development has not only exposed the sinister nuclear bond between China and Pakistan but also raised concerns over nuclear proliferation.

Technically known as ‘autoclave’, the equipment weighs several tonnes. It was part of the consignment on Dai Cui Yun cargo ship that started its journey from Jiangyan on January 17. The final destination of the cargo ship was Karachi’s Port Qasim. After nearly 15-day journey, the cargo ship reached Kandla port in Gujarat on February 3. The HT report said that the ship was almost cleared by the customs. The ship’s onward journey was halted after an intelligence input indicated at a suspicious equipment on the vessel. Declared as an ‘industrial dryer’, the Indian authorities confiscated the pressure chamber and allowed the Chinese cargo ship’s Karachi-bound journey. It should be noted that the dryer has civilian usage also. In military terms, the autoclave is used to build missiles.

The HT report on Wednesday said that the DRDO researchers have confirmed that equipment confiscated from Chinese ship is used for ‘manufacture of very long-range ballistic missiles or satellite launch rockets.’ Will New Delhi work under its stringent 2005 WMD Act in this case? That is up to the Narendra Modi government to decide. The Ministry of External Affairs defines the Weapons of Mass Destruction and Their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Act 2005 as “an Act to prohibit unlawful activities, in relation to weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto." Something India is determined to safeguard.

Last month, Islamabad had announced that it had successfully test-fired cruise missile called the Ra'ad-II. The Inter Services Public Relations, the PR wing of the Pakistan military, released a statement on the Ra'ad-II test, noting that the weapon had a range of 600km. The Ra'ad-II cruise missile is a modernised version of the Ra'ad-I missile, which Pakistan first test-fired in 2007 and was claimed to have a range of 350km.

(With agency inputs)

Confiscated Chinese 'Dryer' At Kandla Port Meant For Pakistani Nuke Missile: Report - News Nation
 
Trial of 'RAW Agent' in German Court Casts Spotlight on India's Secret War Against Khalistan Terror in Europe

The upcoming trial of German resident Balvir Singh — scheduled for August 25, according to German government documents — is the third recent case involving RAW assets in that country.


By Praveen Swami
News18.com
Last Updated:
May 18, 2020, 3:40 PM IST
1589864286778.png

File photo of a Khalistan freedom rally outside Indian High Commission in London.

New Delhi:
German prosecutors will present evidence that a Frankfurt man scheduled for trial in a Federal state-security court in August received payoffs from India’s Research and Analysis Wing for spying on Khalistan and Kashmiri secessionists, as well as other sensitive details of the intelligence service’s operations in that country, highly-placed diplomatic sources have told Network18.

The upcoming trial of German resident Balvir Singh — scheduled for August 25, according to German government documents — is the third recent case involving RAW assets in that country, and comes in the wake of similar prosecutions in Canada and the United Arab Emirates.

Even though Germany and India have sought to contain potential damage to their diplomatic relationship from the case, diplomatic sources said, strains have begun to mount as foreign intelligence services have pushed back against India’s secret war on Khalistan terror cells across Europe and Canada.

Balvir Singh’s case, diplomatic sources said, centres around a senior RAW officer, recruited into the organisation from the Indian Revenue Service and operating out of India’s consulate in Frankfurt. The officer was asked to leave Germany after serving for less at the station for just six months, on charges of engaging activities incompatible with his status as a diplomat — the language Foreign Ministries use to describe espionage.

Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz or BfV, had targeted the officer’s activities in Frankfurt for surveillance following complaints emanating from pro-Khalistan groups that RAW operations were violating the country’s laws. German diplomat Uwe Kehm was asked to leave India in retaliation for the expulsion of the RAW officer, diplomatic sources said.

RAW’s Frankfurt office was among other things engaged, intelligence sources said, in seeking information on Gurdev Singh Bagga, a German resident alleged by India to have been involved in last year’s deliveries of weapons and ammunition from Pakistan into Punjab’s Tarn Taran district, using Global Positioning System-fitted drones.

“Like Bagga”, a senior Punjab Police officer told Network18, “there are many pro-Khalistan Sikhs earlier based in Pakistan who have been given asylum in Germany. We are frustrated not just by misguided European policies which give residence rights to terrorists, but at the failure of their counter-terrorism services to take the operations of Khalistanis seriously”.

RAW maintains two outposts operating under diplomatic cover in Germany — the most in any European country — running from India’s embassy in Bonn, and the consulate in Frankfurt, intelligence sources say.

The operations of the Bonn intelligence station, in line with diplomatic convention, are formally disclosed to the German government. RAW’s station chief in Bonn is charged with liaising with the agency’s counterpart in that country, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND.

Even though Indian authorities have for long informally admitted the existence of the Frankfurt station — first set up to liaise with Afghan and Pakistani dissidents in Europe — the RAW officer serving there is not formally disclosed to the German government.

In 2019, a Frankfurt court gave Manmohan Singh, a journalist with a pro-Khalistan online news platform in Germany, an eighteen-suspended sentence for spying on Sikh secessionists for RAW’s Frankfurt station. Along with his wife Kamaljit Kaur, Manmohan Singh was found guilty of receiving €7,000 for information provided to RAW between 2015 and 2018.

Earlier, in 2015, a German immigration officer was prosecuted for passing on material on suspected Khalistan activists to RAW. The previous year, Ranjit Singh — who had sought asylum in Germany claiming to be an All India Sikh Students Federation activist persecuted by India — was sentenced to nine months in prison for spying for RAW.

Immigration authorities in Canada, court documents show, even denied an Indian journalist permission to join his family in that country, saying he had sought to influence politicians in that country on instructions from RAW. The immigration authorities’ determination was, however, overruled by a court in March.

Ever since 2015, Indian intelligence sources said, RAW had aggressively recruited agents inside pro-Khalistan circles across Europe and Canada, seeking to target increasingly active cells providing finance and ideological support for secessionist terrorism in Punjab. The move ran in parallel with a separate push by Prime Minister Modi, starting from his visit to London in November, 2015, to win back Khalistan supporters living in the diaspora.

Led by now-RAW chief Samant Goel — then stationed in London—RAW’s new anti-Khalistan operations in Europe however sparked off confrontations with domestic intelligence services in those countries, who believed India was violating the conventions governing the activities of it.

Goel himself, intelligence sources said, came under pressure from authorities in the United Kingdom, who believed his operations were poaching on existing assets of that country’s own domestic intelligence service, MI5.

European laws guaranteeing privacy to citizens, a Western diplomatic source said, made it hard for their domestic counter-intelligence services to countenance some of RAW’s operations, one Western diplomatic official said. “Faced with complaints that a foreign intelligence officer is threatening the rights of residents”, he argued, “we have no option but to act”.

“Let me concede that, in some cases, we’ve been less than discreet about what we’ve been doing,” one RAW officer said. “No country will tolerate another brazenly conducting espionage on its soil. But the flip side of the story is also important, which is that Western intelligence services have been notoriously lax in their handling of Khalistan groups.”

In 2010, for example, damning evidence surfaced in judicial investigation that Canada’s intelligence and police services had known that plotting was underway to bomb the Air India jet downed over the Irish Sea in 1985, killing 329 people — but failed to act, because of a toxic mix of racism and misjudgment.

“This problem wouldn’t exist if Western governments weren’t giving asylum to religious terrorists in the first place,” the officer said.

Even though the overall diplomatic relationship between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chancellor Angela Merkel has been robust — Bonn, notably, pushed back against China’s efforts to debate Kashmir in the United Nations Security Council, and declared that the termination of Kashmir’s special status was India’s internal matter —signs have begun to emerge of strains in the relationship.

Germany’s embassy in New Delhi had in March announced it was donating ₹1.2 million to a campaign by former Indian Administrative Service officer Harsh Mander — a vocal critic of the Prime Minister and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Both Germany’s Embassy in New Delhi and the Ministry of External Affairs did not respond to requests from Network18 for comment on the donation.

The donation came months after India invited members of the Alternative für Deutschland, a far-right political party hostile to Chancellor Merkel, to visit Kashmir in the wake of the revocation of Article 370.