What should have been a classic and banal exchange of messages between secret service colleagues turned into a terrible mistake.
According to information from French TV channel M6, the agent texted a colleague to tell him about the target he was monitoring then, a very active radical Islamist.
But following a manipulation error, the agent sent the message to the Islamist under surveillance. The suspect, not surprised, immediately understood that he was being tapped and did not hesitate to call the agent directly.
The Islamist taunted the unfortunate man at fault, both realising that a whole investigation had just been compromised. The wiretapped individual was, of course, eager to warn all the people with whom he was in contact, that he was under surveillance.
The number of individuals monitored by intelligence services for “violent radicalisation” has meanwhile increased in France.
According to the Director General of the Directorate General of Internal Security (DGSI), Laurent Nuñez, invited on RTL on November 14, 2017, the FSTRP (Signal file for the prevention of radicalization with a terrorist character) includes “a little over 18 000 names”. At the beginning of 2017, there were between 15 000 and 16 000.
Of these, 4 000 are watched very closely because they present a great danger. Another 8 000 are followed for “weak signals” by other services. The youngest individual watched is only 11 years old, Europe 1 reported.