Turkey claims to have arrested Mossad financial manager in the country
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Turkey allegedly arrested a Mossad spy from Kosovo last week who was operating in the country, according to Turkish security sources.
According to the sources, MIT, the Turkish national intelligence agency, arrested Kosovar Liridin Rexhepi, who it claims was a “financier for the Israeli intelligence.”
MIT alleges that Rexhepi managed Mossad’s financial network in Turkey, sending money to informants who “were filming with drones, conducting psychological warfare against Palestinian politicians and collecting information about the situation in Syria.”
The sources say that MIT followed Rexhepi once he entered Turkey on August 25, and that Istanbul’s Counterterrorism Police detained him on August 30. Rexhepi admitted to making cash transfers to informants via Western Union and was sent to prison pending a court appearance.
MIT claims that Mossad has been sending money to its spies in Turkey from Eastern European countries, especially Kosovo. Some of the funds were transferred to informants in Syria. They also used cryptocurrencies, according to the Turkish security sources.
Turkey announced a series of arrests of individuals with alleged links to the Mossad earlier this year.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been one of the most bitter critics of Israel’s war on Hamas on the international stage.
