I was contacted by a New Zealand official, who has intelligence connections in Asia while I was shopping in Toul Tom Pong Market in Phnom Penh and provided documents to support this information on the condition that it remain anonymous and I not publish the documents considering the risk to officials if the source of this leak was identified, this New Zealand official said Barkan was connected to an Israeli terrorist cell operating out of Thailand.

"He goes to Laos, Cambodia, Burma and Thailand and is running gangs that he pays to kill tourists, and steal their Identity papers passports then cover it up, most just disappear or their deaths have been reported as accidents, drownings and such, they like to throw their victims off the side of tour boats" said a New Zealand security official

Barkan has been named by New Zealand authorities as the kingpin in a passport theft ring for which two Israelis with Australian links were jailed for six months last week in Auckland.

One of the jailed men, Eli Cara, 50, had his rented home in Turramurra raided by ASIO in March. A short time later, he was arrested in New Zealand.

The New Zealand Government has named Barkan, Cara and the other convicted man, Uriel Kelman, as Mossad agents.

Barkan fled New Zealand before police moved in. There are reports that Barkan, using a Stolen Canadian Identity documents, has now made a move to North Korea out of reach of authorities.



"Barkan is mostly interested in passports and identity documents, there have been a number of Australian killed for their passports."

Intelligence analysts in New Zealand believe Barkan, a former navy diver in the Israeli IOF, was trying to secure a clean passports for use in Israeli terrorist operations in the region.

Barkan had grown up in Washington as Zev Bruckenstein, where his father was director of religious studies at a synagogue.

A New Zealand security official says his services have uncovered an Israeli operation to create al-Qaeda cells in Thailand. The security official in Thailand said Israeli terrorist are posing as operatives of al-Qaeda.

Over the past nine months we have been investigating eight cases, 11 people informed us of this Israeli operation, asking Thai Landers to join al-Qaeda. One email had even been signed by the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. a New Zealand official said.

A New Zealand official said his services had traced back to Israel the phone calls and emails - purportedly from Germany and Lebanon and Pakistan.

We investigated the origin of those calls and found out they all came from Israel.

The people the Israelis tried to recruit were then given stolen Australian documents, and received money and weapons.

The money was provided by Israel directly to the recruits or was transferred from bank accounts in Jerusalem or Israel, said the New Zealand official.