A former employee of chip-making equipment manufacturer ASML and chipmaker NXP, who has been in custody for several months on suspicion of industrial espionage, contacted the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
This is stated in an official report from the General Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands (AIVD) to the prosecutor’s office, reports NOS.
The court in Rotterdam discussed this message today during a formal hearing in the case against the former employee. The prosecution states that they received the message on December 23. AIVD writes that there was contact between the man in the Netherlands and the SVR employee.
The SVR, according to AIVD, is involved in gathering “intelligence information about science and technology.”
Nieuwsuur reported at the beginning of December the arrest of a Russian engineer, among others at ASML and NXP, in the Netherlands. He allegedly stole company secrets for years and shared them with a Russian contact. These were instructions and other digital documents.
The prosecution claims that the man intended to use the documents and his technological expertise to establish a semiconductor manufacturing plant in Russia. In addition to stealing trade secrets, he is also accused of violating sanctions.
Despite the fact that the man is only a suspect, the Minister for Asylum and Migration, Margrethe Vestager, has imposed a 20-year entry ban on him. This happens only to people who pose a threat to national security.
During today’s hearing, the prosecution provided more information on how the suspect was sending information to Russia. The examination of the internal drive showed that he stored technical information about the manufacturing of computer chips in special folders. He used a unique username, “Focus,” for this purpose. We transmitted the information to another person via Google Drive.
According to the prosecutor’s office, this person is in Russia and, “as far as is known,” works at the Russian Innovation Engineering Centre. This organisation funds projects that aim to acquire technologies from abroad or replace them with Russian ones.
The company’s clients include major Russian companies, including the arms manufacturer “Rostec” and the oil companies “Gazprom” and “Rosneft.”
In a speech to SVR employees in June 2022, three months after the invasion of Ukraine, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin named promoting Russia’s industrial and technological development as one of the intelligence agency’s priorities, especially against the backdrop of Western sanctions.
This is not the first case of Russians working for the AIVD in the Netherlands being exposed. In 2020, the AIVD discovered that two diplomats were working for this service. They were hunting for sensitive information from Dutch high-tech companies and institutions.
In 2022, a study by NOS and Nieuwsuur showed that some of the seventeen expelled Russian spies also worked for the AIVD. The study showed that these officers, among other things, were gathering information about computer chips.
The National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security of the Netherlands (NCTV), Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, stated last October that Russia and China are intensifying cyberattacks on the state and its allies.
Finland had previously also reported numerous cases of sabotage, cyberattacks, and destabilisation, holding Russia responsible for conducting influence operations against the country.
