How Foreign Spies Infiltrate US Police
Egypt-NYPD case the tip of an iceberg of Chinese, Russian, Cuban, Turkish and Israeli agents seeking US police sources
The arrest in New York last week of an Egyptian-American accused of spying on exiles opposed to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s repressive regime has lifted the curtain on a “significant” but little noted national security issue: the recruitment of U.S. state and local police by foreign intelligence agencies.
Pierre Girgis, a dual Egyptian-U.S. citizen in Manhattan, worked at the "direction and control" of several Cairo agencies to advance the regime's interests in the United States from 2014 through 2019, according to a federal indictment handed down Jan. 6.
Girgis, a Capital One bank vice president who openly promoted interchanges between Egyptian officials and American police, had a secret helper, according to the Justice Department: a source in local law enforcement. FBI wiretaps overheard Girgis and Egyptian officials talking about exploiting the (unnamed) police officer for private information on anti-regime activists here.
The Girgis case is hardly atypical, law enforcement so…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to SpyTalk to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.