The aviation industry are in the frame as Plane Stupid investigation exposes mole.
Climate action group Plane Stupid has been targeted by a professional espionage agency.
Climate action group Plane Stupid has been targeted by a professional espionage agency.
Oxford-educated Toby Kendall, 24, an employee of aerospace security consultants C2i International (1), infiltrated and spied on Heathrow campaign groups across London for a year. He was immediately suspected and following a Plane Stupid investigation he was last week confronted and exposed in a Japanese restaurant by the Plane Stupid activist Tamsin Omond - one of those who recently scaled Parliament (2).
Heathrow owner BAA admitted to this morning’s Times newspaper that it has been in contact with C2i, having previously claimed it had no involvement in the spying operation.
C2i International states on its website that its team is “hand-picked from Special Operations at New Scotland Yard” (3). It is run by self-proclaimed Special Forces Veteran Justin King and says it “delivers tailored advice and solutions to companies in a wide range of industries including Aerospace.” C2i lists its “key services” as “Counter Espionage & Debugging” and “Executive Profiling and Investigation” (4).
Piecing together evidence including photographs, reports from fellow students at Oxford and website profiles, Plane Stupid discovered the agent who was going by the name of “Ken Tobias” is in fact “Toby Kendall” who was captain of the athletics team at Wadham College, Oxford.
Kendall - who lists Top Gun as his favourite film on his Bebo social networking profile (5) - went undercover in London Plane Stupid following last year’s Climate Camp at Heathrow. He made elementary errors as his career as a secret agent faltered at the first hurdle - due to his poorly constructed back-story and appalling acting skills. When Plane Stupid fed Kendall false information it was just 48 hours before sources in the aviation industry confirmed that the plans had been reported back to them.
The day after he was confronted, Kendall emailed Plane Stupid saying, “I came into the group with a pure heart wanting to make a difference. I still of course hold my principles.” (6)
Tamsin Omond, 23, a Church of England parish administrator, said today:
“The aviation industry brought its special brand of bumbling incompetence to the task of spying on us. Their secret agent was more Austin Powers than James Bond though the question still remains, who paid the espionage agency?”
Plane Stupid is publishing a full dossier of evidence against the spy, including web links, photographs and more at www.planestupid.com
(1)
http://www.c2i-international.com and http://www.linkedin.com/pub/5/b37/418
(2) http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/plane-stupid-scales-parliament-27th-february-2008
(3) http://www.c2i-international.com/Newservices/counteresp.htm
(4) http://www.c2i-international.com/Newservices/Busprotection.htm
(5) http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3859423
(6) Email available to view at www.planestupid.com
Heathrow owner BAA admitted to this morning’s Times newspaper that it has been in contact with C2i, having previously claimed it had no involvement in the spying operation.
C2i International states on its website that its team is “hand-picked from Special Operations at New Scotland Yard” (3). It is run by self-proclaimed Special Forces Veteran Justin King and says it “delivers tailored advice and solutions to companies in a wide range of industries including Aerospace.” C2i lists its “key services” as “Counter Espionage & Debugging” and “Executive Profiling and Investigation” (4).
Piecing together evidence including photographs, reports from fellow students at Oxford and website profiles, Plane Stupid discovered the agent who was going by the name of “Ken Tobias” is in fact “Toby Kendall” who was captain of the athletics team at Wadham College, Oxford.
Kendall - who lists Top Gun as his favourite film on his Bebo social networking profile (5) - went undercover in London Plane Stupid following last year’s Climate Camp at Heathrow. He made elementary errors as his career as a secret agent faltered at the first hurdle - due to his poorly constructed back-story and appalling acting skills. When Plane Stupid fed Kendall false information it was just 48 hours before sources in the aviation industry confirmed that the plans had been reported back to them.
The day after he was confronted, Kendall emailed Plane Stupid saying, “I came into the group with a pure heart wanting to make a difference. I still of course hold my principles.” (6)
Tamsin Omond, 23, a Church of England parish administrator, said today:
“The aviation industry brought its special brand of bumbling incompetence to the task of spying on us. Their secret agent was more Austin Powers than James Bond though the question still remains, who paid the espionage agency?”
Plane Stupid is publishing a full dossier of evidence against the spy, including web links, photographs and more at www.planestupid.com
(1)
http://www.c2i-international.com and http://www.linkedin.com/pub/5/b37/418 (2)
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/plane-stupid-scales-parliament-27th-february-2008 (3)
http://www.c2i-international.com/Newservices/counteresp.htm (4)
http://www.c2i-international.com/Newservices/Busprotection.htm (5)
http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3859423 (6) Email available to view at www.planestupid.com
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nice
08.04.2008 11:27
Well done for thinking that up.
fly posters
Reality Check
08.04.2008 13:40
Well done to the Plane Stupid people for finding him out but let's not get carried away shall we. Far more likely that a real spy would not make these basic mistakes and would in fact be 100% undetectable. Let's not forget the moles at senior levels in various organisations who were never discovered until the campaigns fell apart. Look at how Peter Haine was fooled, how the CAAT people caught one infiltrator but the other was never found, how Greenpeace in France spent years trying to find the spy they had but never succeeded.
Moneypenny
memo to miss moneypenny
12.04.2008 15:37
Please refrain from discussing secret matters on Indimedia. You are not qualified to do so. You should stick to the south side of the river and matters foreign.
The fact of the matter is that we, at Thames House, do not wish to get our hands dirty dealing with this matter. This is best left to the private sector.
It is indeed unfortunate that BAA Ltd chose an investigation team that lacked the necessary skills to get the job done. It is my opinion that whoever chose a recently graduated "Oriental Studies" student as a bug & burgle operative must have taken leave of his senses. How does a degree in Oriental Studies qualify anyone to even change a fuse let alone set up and maintain cutting edge electronics?
Whoever was tasked with "handling" him failed to check his "legend". They also failed to properly direct him. Clearly this was the work of an amateur.
Whoever was tasked with analysing and disseminating raw intelligence gleaned from this operative failed to anticipate the possibility of a sting operation, plainly a very stupid thing to do in the circumstances.
In view of the above we will not be offering work to the "outfit" responsible for this mess. I suggest that you pass my comments to JS for similar action.
I am sending this memo to you via a secure contract courier as things have been leaking out too much recently. I hope to god that there are no more cockups otherwise i may as well kiss my knighthood goodbye.
JE"
JE (if i tell you my name i will have to shoot you...:)