14 DAY TRIAL // Four Israeli citizens, of whom two are former Mossad agents, were arrested by Romanian authorities after hacking into the email accounts of three family members of Laura Codruta Kovesi, Romania's chief prosecutor for the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA).
Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) arrested Dan Zorella, Avi Yanus, Ron Weiner and David Geclowicz, on April 3, 2016.
The four suspects were arrested for 30 days, and DIICOT is collaborating with the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) for this investigation.
Four-man squad tried to hack email accounts of Kovesi's family
The first two are former Mossad (Israel intelligence agency) operatives, now the co-founders and execute directors of Israeli private investigations firm Black Cube, who also employed at one point former Mossad director (2002 - 2011) Meir Dagan.
The latter two are the technical experts and responsible for the actual hacking. According to court papers, Weiner carried out the cyber-attacks while Geclowicz was the one getting in contact with the victims for any social engineering operations needed to obtain email addresses and other phone numbers.
In statements made to Romanian press, Kovesi said that none of her email accounts was hacked.
Common attack patterns employed by APTs and cyber-espionage crews have hackers compromising individuals next to their target, and then sending spear-phishing emails from these accounts, of which the victim may not be as suspicious.
Kovesi is leading Romania's fight against government corruption
Kovesi was appointed in 2006 as Romania's top prosecutor. She is the first woman and the youngest prosecutor ever appointed. During the past ten years, Kovesi has been the bane of Romania's corrupt political elite.
Under her guidance, investigations have sent hundreds of mayors, judges, members of the Romanian Parliament, former ministers, and even a former prime minister to prison.
In statements made to the Israeli press, Black Cube representatives have said that their two directors were in Romania to guide an investigation to collect evidence of corruption in the Romanian government and its agencies. Black Cube declined to name who hired them for this investigation.
Black Cube was founded in 2011 and has been known to hire former Israeli intelligence agents. The company offers intelligence services, and in recent years, it has helped authorities and other parties sift through the Dark Web and even penetrate hacking crews.
In recent years, Romanian authorities, spearheaded by Kovesi, have started investigations into the affairs of three wealthy Israeli businessmen, Beny Steinmetz, Shimon Sheves, and Tal Ziberstein, who recently fled Romania for Israel. The three are accused of participating in illegal real estate deals that embezzled the Romanian state of $150 million.
UPDATE: Below is a copy of the arrest warrant obtained by Romania's RISE Project, which also broke the news locally. Additionally, our readers on Twitter have pointed out that it makes no sense for the four Black Cube employees to be in Romania to hack an email account. No information obtained by Softpedia or any of the local Romanian newspapers points to their reasons for being on Romanian soil, even if they could have very well carried out the attacks from Israel.