Algeria: disorder in the Directorate of Technical Intelligence
The General Directorate of Technical Intelligence (DGRT), a sensitive branch of the Algerian secret services, in charge of monitoring telephone communications (commonly known as wiretapping) and transmissions, has been handed over to a new batch of officers. Young and old. From junior officers to generals. Everyone does business with wiretapping.
You only need to know an officer working in this structure, or someone close to him, to act as an intermediary and you can listen in on anyone you want. Of course, for a good wad of cash. For 20,000 dinars (the equivalent of 90 euros) you can bug your wife or your lover or an adversary you are trying to compromise. Obviously, 20,000 dinars is the minimum for a minimum service. Usually just one tap. Some people pay huge fortunes for a VIP service. Unbelievable. But that is the sad reality.
This practice is an open secret, so widespread is it in a service that it has gone completely off the rails. Staff working in this service have no means to make ends meet like their colleagues in other services. They have no way of making representations to local authorities or a minister on behalf of someone close to them, in exchange for money. So we make do with what we have. Wiretapping. They make it possible to control opponents. Blackmailing businessmen. It's a real investment for many fraudsters who have made a fortune from wiretapping.
How did we get here?
Regional Director of Technical Intelligence in the 5th Military Region in Constantine, when he was a colonel, Smaïn Afadjène was promoted to head of the DGRT in April 2019. He will be spared the purge that has affected practically all of General Ahmed Gaïd Salah's former close collaborators since the latter's death in December 2019. Promoted to general, he will come under the wing of the new army chief, General Saïd Chengriha. He could not have hoped for better protection to act as sole head of the Reghaïa listening centre. In the eastern suburbs of Algiers. He intervenes in targets that have nothing to do with his prerogatives or his missions. The people in charge of eavesdropping and transcribing the eavesdropping reports became aware of their boss's activities and, in turn, began to use and abuse the eavesdropping as described above.
In September 2023, General Smaïn Afadjène was dismissed from the army on suspicion of collusion with one of the president's advisors, Boualem Boualem, who had previously headed a similar department for Saïd Bouteflika, advisor and younger brother of the late President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. His departure set the tongues of his former colleagues at the DGRT wagging, prompting the army's Central Security Directorate (DCSA) to open an investigation and quickly arrest him. During his arrest, his home was searched. It was then that the cake was uncovered. Wiretapping of high-ranking general officers. Eavesdropping outside any legal framework. The one who was thought to have been discovered was discovered. He was sent to military prison to join his many comrades. But the scandal is still raging within the corruption-plagued Algerian secret services. Which is entirely logical in a regime that has made corruption its system of government.
