Black Cube, a Late Mossad Chief, and a Rogue Op Against a Top Romanian

Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan once recommended that the company work ‘as an arm of’ the Romanian Intelligence Service, Black Cube’s CEO told police. Dagan is no longer around to give his side of the story

In April 2016, two employees of Israeli private intelligence firm Black Cube were arrested at a Bucharest hotel – later to be sentenced to probation and be allowed to leave Romania.

The company’s CEO testified that a former Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, recommended that Black Cube work “as an arm of” the Romanian Intelligence Service. This testimony is included in the transcript of a police interrogation obtained by Haaretz.

Dagan, who headed the Mossad from 2002 to 2011, died in 2016.

According to the indictment that followed the 2016 arrest, David Geclowicz and Ron Weiner had hacked into the computers of family members and other confidants of Romania’s Laura Codruta Kovesi, then a state prosecutor heading a war on corruption.

Black Cube had allegedly been hired to find damaging evidence against Kovesi, who was then investigating senior state officials, including people close to the president. The hacking took place weeks before a decision was to be made on whether to appoint Kovesi for another term.

Two months later, Black Cube’s co-founder and CEO, Dan Zorella, sat in a police interrogation room in Lod, Israel. He was providing his version of events to the Israel Police and a Romanian investigator after Bucharest had requested legal assistance in the case.

According to the transcript of the interrogation of Zorella, he said he believed he had been hired by the Romanian Intelligence Service, the SRI, with the consent of its leader, Eduard Hellvig, and President Iohannis Klaus.

Both had had their run-ins with Kovesi, who would go on to serve until July 2018; in October 2019, she became the European Union’s public prosecutor.

According to Zorella, Dagan said that the operation was under the sponsorship of the SRI, and that it was “an important mission.”

Zorella told the story of the person who had hired him, Daniel Dragomir, a former Romanian intelligence agent. According to Zorella, Dragomir said Black Cube could operate as an intelligence arm for Romania.

As Zorella said in the transcript, “Dragomir said he was interested in launching the project …. He said there were only three weeks left to carry out the mission,” referring to the deadline for extending Kovesi’s term.

According to Zorella, Dragomir “had received the SRI’s permission to act as an arm of the organization, so we could carry out operations and penetrate emails.”

When asked for proof that he was operating as a group within the SRI, Zorella did not present a document.

When asked what form of approval his company had, he said: “I recalled how Meir Dagan, Black Cube’s honorary president, had good ties with the Romanian Intelligence Service.

“I thought he could so some more in-depth checking for us regarding the substance of the project …. I went to Meir Dagan’s home a few days after the talk with Daniel [Dragomir]. I explained the project’s sensitivity and asked if he could check with his contacts in Romania on whether it was a government project.

“Dagan didn’t know Dragomir. He said he’d check and get back to us .... The only ones there who saw me walk into Dagan’s were his guards.”

According to Zorella, “Dagan got back to me a day or two later by phone. He said he had checked in Romania and that indeed this was a very important and sensitive project for the country of Romania. We should carry out the operations, as Daniel had said, only inside Romania, and this way we’ll be protected by the organization [the SRI] and be considered an arm of the SRI – it’s an important mission, good luck.”

At this stage, there was no way for the investigators to verify Zorella’s account of his talks with Dagan. Dagan had died three months before.

Since the affair, Black Cube has said it has learned a lesson, and the company has stopped providing services to governments, or getting involved in politics in any way.

Still, in The New Yorker in 2018, Ronan Farrow reported that the company had gathered material on Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl, two former aides to former U.S. President Barack Obama.

This was only one example of reports that the company had served governments even before the complications in Romania. In Israel, TheMarker reported that Black Cube had provided services to the Defense Ministry from 2012 to 2014.

The investigative news program “Uvda” said that around the same time, Black Cube had proposed to Israel Chemicals that it spy on three people: Yair Lapid, the finance minister in 2013 and 2014; the then-accountant general, Michal Abadi-Boiangiu; and a then-deputy attorney general, Avi Licht.

Israel Chemicals had clashed with the government regarding the taxing of natural resources.

Black Cube sued “Uvda” after the program reported that the company was spying on opponents of Joseph Kabila, the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo until 2019. Black Cube called this report a false “smear.”

Black Cube said in response: “This is a regrettable affair from five years ago being recycled many times by the media in Israel and abroad. Black Cube was hired by a senior figure in Romania and cooperated fully with the authorities in Romania, trying to resolve the complicated affair it became embroiled in as a victim and to release two of its people from custody.

“The company and its people have never been questioned in Israel except to take part in international assistance to the authorities in Romania. After the affair, the company established a committee that reviews and confirms the acceptance of new clients. The company, whose services have been hired by leading law firms around the world for a decade, continues to operate in accordance with the law in every country.”