Security News > 2021 > February > France Tries Three for Attack Plot After Cyber Infiltration
Two French citizens and a Moroccan went on trial in Paris on Monday charged with planning attacks after their cyber network was successfully infiltrated by a French intelligence agent posing as a jihadist.
The agent from France's DGSI domestic intelligence service, using the codename Ulysse, had infiltrated communication networks of Islamic State group jihadists in a ruse that led to the arrest of the three.
The agent will give video evidence on Friday under the codename of 282-SI. The trap laid by the agent is reminiscent of some episodes in the internationally successful French TV drama "The Bureau," which fictionalises the work of the DGSI's sister service on foreign intelligence, the DGSE. The case began in 2016.
After intelligence indicating the IS group was seeking to obtain weapons for a "Violent action" on French soil, the DGSI agent managed to penetrate an encrypted Telegram messaging loop and make contact with an IS "Emir" in Syria, nicknamed Sayyaf.
French intelligence then received information that the two French citizens, who had been around the Turkish-Syrian border, had come home and were readying for action.
France remains on high alert for jihadist attacks after a string of terror strikes from 2015 and a spate of isolated attacks at the end of last year.