DarkMarket_ Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You - Misha Glenny [98]
Of an evening, Mert would be called in by his control at the Intelligence Agency and asked to give a forensic assessment of various hard disks and computers, which they had conjured up seemingly from nowhere. He was supposed to gut the files, crack passwords where possible and deliver any incriminating materials. The Agency’s primary responsibility was for Turkey’s domestic security and it was tasked with monitoring the wide range of organisations that the government deemed were engaged in terrorism.
Towards the end of 2006 Toshiba sacked Mert – his attitude was not right, he boasted a little too much about his dubious exploits with credit cards, and yet he was also constantly asking his colleagues for loans or bonus payments.
Mert claimed that he left Toshiba on the instructions of his handlers at National Intelligence. They were working on finding him another cover job, he said.
Just before he began work at his new post, his handler brought him a hard disk that formed part of a highly sensitive investigation. Control wanted to know everything about each file on the disk, whether visible or hidden, accessible or encrypted. The disk belonged to a senior member of a left-wing underground organisation known by its acronym, the DHKP/C.
During the 1990s and early 2000s the DHKP/C had been one of the most violent and effective left-wing organisations committed to armed struggle in Turkey. The Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (the Party was the political wing and the Front, in theory, the military wing) was a splinter group from Dev Yol, the larger revolutionary movement, which bore the brunt of military repression during the 1970s and 1980s.
This group was no tinpot outfit – it took its politics and its terrorism seriously, concentrating primarily on attacking the collaboration between what it denounced as NATO imperialism and the Turkish military establishment. It carried out successful assassinations against Turkish, American and British citizens who were either influential businessmen or linked to the military. In contrast to most leftist armed outfits, it boasted a sophisticated counter-intelligence capacity and, as such, was one of National Intelligence’s trickiest surveillance targets.
On one raid agents had picked up a laptop, and it was handed to Mert in the guesthouse where he was first interviewed and where he now always worked. His handler explained that the user had been accessing a website called DarkMarket. The handler was also a geek and told Mert that he had followed DarkMarket’s connections as far as a server in Singapore, which looked to him like a proxy. After that, he said, he lost the digital trail. He knew nothing about who was behind this site, although the evidence strongly suggested to him that the DHKP/C was involved in carding as a way of maximising its revenue and perhaps also investigating the use of botnets and whether this might assist the DHKP/C in achieving its goals.
Suddenly DarkMarket was no longer just a criminal website: it was helping to fund a designated terrorist organisation.
Did Mert, the handler asked, know anything about this site?
Mert did not. He, too, tracked DarkMarket’s server back to Singapore, but try as he might he could not trace it any further. This was in fact thanks to Grendel’s sterling efforts. Nonetheless, Mert told his handler he knew somebody who might be better acquainted with DarkMarket.
Mert was tired. National Intelligence invariably expected him to complete these assignments overnight. His new job was working for the Turkish concession of Fox TV. Fox Turkey was not wholly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International because, according to Turkish law, a local citizen had to control 51 per cent of the stock. This majority shareholder was a former diplomat who was known to have links to the police and secret service. At Fox, Mert’s colleagues noticed that he was frequently, if not always, distracted. And that