Iran arrests 17 CIA spies

17 CIA-trained spies have been identified and arrested in Iran, Director General of anti-spy department of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence announced on Monday.

“Anti-spy department of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence annihilated a spy network affiliated to the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States on June 18,” the official said in a press conference.

According to the intelligence official, the spies were trained by CIA and their verdicts have been issued.

Mentioning that some of them have been sentenced to death, the senior official said, the identified spies were the staffs of sensitive centers and their counterpart private sectors, working as contractors or consultants.

These centers include economic, nuclear, infrastructural, military, and cyber fields, he added, “Totally 17 spies have been identifies who were acting in a cellular manner and none of them has any connection to others”.

The spies were in charge of missions including collecting classified information from substantial centers and intelligence-technical operations, he said.

“Individuals who consciously and deliberately betrayed the country and refused to compensate for the losses, have been handed over to the judiciary system. Others who honestly cooperated with the security system and their remorse has been proven, have been managed with intelligence direction against Americans,” he continued.

He also noted that the intelligence agencies of some Asian and European countries had been collaborating with the CIA in these espionage activities.

Answering a question on whether their missions had any impact on the relevant centers, the official said, immediate measures by intelligence officials didn’t let them to make any disturbance.

All the identified spies are Iranian and they can’t be exchanged, he noted.

ISNA