2023-09-22 19:00:02
COPENHAGEN (AP) — Norwegian authorities have dropped espionage charges once morest an unidentified 25-year-old foreign student and are now holding him on suspicion of a “serious financial crime.”
The student, from Malaysia, was arrested in Norway on September 8 for illegal spying using various technical devices. A court ordered his preventive detention for four weeks on suspicion of espionage and intelligence operations once morest the Nordic country, a NATO member.
The original allegations once morest him have now changed, with police saying Friday that his use of signal technology was an effort to obtain information for financial gain.
Marianne Bender, a prosecutor in the Norwegian police’s economic crimes department, said the young man used mobile phone surveillance devices, or IMSI-catchers, in an attempt to commit “serious fraud” in the country’s capital, Oslo, and in Bergen, the second largest city in Norway.
International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) sniffers pretend to be mobile phone towers and intercept signals on phones to spy on calls and messages.
Bender said the case is “large and extensive, and likely involves organized crime with international ramifications.”
A prosecutor with Norway’s internal security agency, Thomas Blom, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that the suspect was a Malaysian national.
He was reportedly caught illegally monitoring signs in a rental car near the Norwegian Prime Minister’s office and the Ministry of Defense. NRK said initial assumptions were that he worked for another foreign government.
When he was arrested, police also confiscated several electronic devices carrying data.
The suspect is a student, but is not enrolled in an educational institution in Norway and has been living in Norway for a relatively short time, authorities said.
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