Without naming names, Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that the highest-ranking Iranian intelligence official in charge of countering Israeli spies in Iran was himself an agent of Israel.

Israeli spies at high levels in Iran

Ahmadinejad’s revelation was made in a video interview published on Friday. His comments were made in response to statements made by former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen last week on Channel 12 in which he described the Mossad operation that succeeded in stealing the Iranian nuclear archive. The operation took two years and was carried out in 2018. Cohen also implicitly acknowledged that Israeli spies were involved in two explosions in the Iranian uranium enrichment facility in Natanz.

Ahmadinejad, who was President of Iran from 2005-2013, described them as “a corrupt gang at the high level of the Islamic Republic’s intelligence agencies.” 

“This corrupt gang should disclose its role in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and the explosions at the enrichment site in Natanz, Ahmadinejad said in the video. “They stole important documents from Torquzabad and the Iranian Space Agency. These are no jokes. Extremely important documents have been stolen and the country’s security has been compromised.”

“They carried out a major operation in Torquzabad (near Tehran). They gave several vanloads of documents to Israel. It was not just one piece of paper. There were several vans. How did they manage to get several vans out of the country with all the checkpoints in this country?”

“[Iranian intelligence agencies] concealed the news from the people, and we found out about it only when the documents reached the enemies and they revealed the matter,” Ahmadinejad said, adding that “The documents at the Iranian Space Agency were in a safe that belonged to the agency’s chief. The agents pierced the roof, went in through the hole, opened the safe, and took the documents.”

Israelis spying for Iran

Turnaround is fair play and in 2007, the Mossad accused Iran of recruiting expatriates living in Israel. Some of the expats were stopped and interrogated while in Tehran on tourist visas with the Iranian intelligence services trying to coerce the Israeli citizens into spying for them. Some attempts were successful and Israeli security services reportedly arrested at least ten people caught trying to pass information to their Iranian handlers.