TEL AVIV - Eighteen people, including top executives from some of Israel's most prestigious companies, have been arrested in a huge undercover industrial espionage investigation, police and media sources said Sunday.
Israeli police began their inquiries last November, following a tip off that businessmen were using a computer virus to spy on their competitors in automobile, satellite and telecommunications companies, said police.
Hackers used so-called Trojan horse software to infiltrate dozens of companies to track all actions carried out in the system and in some cases even to control the computer remotely.
"Eighteen people, including two in London, have been arrested so far and the investigation is continuing," a police spokesman told AFP.
Among those detained were nine private detectives, believed to have obtained documents and images of huge commercial value, which were then transferred to their clients over a period of 18 months, the Haaretz newspaper said.
"This is one of the gravest scandals in... industrial and market espionage in Israel," said Superintendent Roni Hindi, head of the police special fraud investigations team, was quoted as saying by Haaretz.
Staff from satellite television company YES, telecommunications companies Pelephone and Cellcom, and Mayer Cars and Trucks, the sole Israeli importer of Volvo, Honda and Jaguar, were among those arrested, said public radio.
For six months Interpol has also been investigating the alleged espionage ring, involving police from Britain and Germany in addition to Israel.
Shares on the Tel Aviv stock market slipped Sunday following the revelations although the bourse had been buoyed last week by a jump in foreign investment.
05/29/2005 13:03 GMT