The Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) has started an investigation into four Israeli men suspected of spying on and attempting to compromise the head of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), Laura Codruta Kovesi, Rise Project claimed on April 6.

Under Kovesi, the DNA has become increasingly active in fighting high-level corruption. Its investigations targeted former prime minister Victor Ponta, a number of MPs, mayors and businesspeople. Kovesi has secured another mandate as head of DNA after she was unanimously endorsed for the position by the Romanian magistrates’ body, the Superior Council of the Magistracy (CSM). Her appointment was approved on April 6 by president Klaus Iohannis.

Two of the suspects under investigation, Dan Zorella and Avi Yanus, are former Israeli intelligence agents and the founders and executive managers of private investigation company Black Cube, in which Meir Dagan, a director of Mossad between 2002 and 2011, was also active until last month when he died.

The two former agents together with other employees of their company, including Ron Weiner and David Geclowicz, “have initiated and set up an organized criminal group in order to commit a number of crimes, such as harassment and cyber attacks, consisting of threatening and harassing phone calls, as well as phishing attacks aimed at stealing access credentials and subsequently compromising email accounts, activities followed by violation of the secrecy of correspondence and unauthorized copying and transfer of its content,” a document obtained by Rise showed.

However, Rise, a non-profit organisation involved in investigative journalism, make no mention of the person who had ordered and employed Black Cube for these activities.

The aim of the criminal group was to compromise Kovesi’s image by attempting to “find corruption activities”, according to the documents. Ron Weiner and David Geclowicz have already been arrested. Within the criminal group, Weiner was reportedly in charge of the phishing and email accounts compromise activities, while Geclowicz was in change with calling members of Kovesi’s family or friends in order to obtain their email addresses, which later became the target of the attacks.

The phishing attacks were carried out in March-April this year and the two managed to break three email accounts and illegally access private information, copy and transfer it to their own computers.