Argelia secret service: Unsuccessful kidnapping of an opponent and fall of an influential agent in France

Early Saturday afternoon, April 27, at Orly airport, the national police arrested Saïd Bensdira, alias "the London rat", just as he was about to fly to Barcelona. The subject of several complaints lodged against him by some sixteen of his victims, "the London rat" was taken to the Puteaux police station in the Paris region.

Protected by the Algerian secret services, of which he is one of the most insolent media relays, to discredit Algerian opposition figures abroad, "the London rat" hardly skimped on foul language to castigate anyone targeted by his handlers.

Unhappy with the monthly remuneration of 4,000 euros, according to reliable sources, handed to him personally by the head of the security office at the Algerian embassy in Brussels, he takes advantage of the protection he enjoys to blackmail Algerian businessmen, committing petty crimes ranging from extortion by blackmail and threats to home invasions, forgery of documents, theft and public defamation of honorable personalities.

A number of his victims have agreed to lodge complaints with the French national police. These complaints, backed up by documents that showed no irregularities whatsoever, began pouring in last January. Less than four months later, "the London rat" fell into the nets of the French police, as described above.

His arrest had nothing to do with politics or his activities as an agent for the Algerian secret services. An unstructured agent, it should be remembered. The charges against him are purely common law.

After 48 hours in police custody, he was brought before the Nanterre public prosecutor's office, where he was placed under judicial supervision pending further investigation by the examining magistrate in charge of the case.

Shortly after the "London rat" was released on bail, Algerian influencer Amir Boukhors, known by the pseudonym Amir Dz, was abducted at around 11.30pm on the evening of Monday April 30. "An unmarked car with a police flashing light on the roof blocked my path as I got into my car to go home.

Four hooded men got out of the vehicle and asked me to get out with my hands up, after ordering me to stop the engine and put the keys on the dashboard", says Amir Dz.

The kidnappers are not French police, as Amir thought. Nor were they Algerians. "From their accents, I think they're Roma or Albanian. And one of them is an Algerian beur," he says.

Amir is sequestered in a precarious building located in a forest not far from the Paris region. He spent 27 hours handcuffed, awaiting a decision he could hardly have imagined. The kidnappers had no idea of his activities or profile. They were surprised to learn that he was an Algerian political refugee in France.

One thing led to another, and in the course of his conversation with one of them, he understood that they had made a deal with Algerians who had ordered his kidnapping to be transferred to Spain, from where he would be shipped back to Algeria.

The day after her husband's disappearance, Madame Boukhors alerted the police at around 3pm. The deployment of police forces around Amir's residence certainly attracted the attention of those behind the kidnapping. This may well have been the reason for the break in contact between the kidnappers and the sponsors.

The kidnappers eventually released their hostage into the wild at around 3am. Stunned by the pills he had been forced to take, and weakened by the events he had just experienced, Amir dragged himself with difficulty to the side of the road to hitchhike home at daybreak.

Once home, he was taken in charge by the national police. He was first taken to hospital for blood and urine tests. He was then interviewed to recount the facts in detail for the purposes of the investigation. The investigation soon located Amir's car. It had been abandoned and burnt by the kidnappers a short distance from where he had been abducted.

For Amir Boukhors, there can be no doubt. "The Algerian services are behind my kidnapping. This isn't their first attempt. It all started in October 2016, when one of their henchmen, Aref Mechakra, instructed a group of young Africans to beat me up. I filed a complaint.

Aref Mechakra, known for his displays on social networks in pink nighties and garter belts, is one of the "London rat's" henchmen. Not long ago, he served a one-year prison sentence in Algeria for having been caught in flagrante delicto with a foreign national in Algiers. According to the Algerian daily "Al-Hayat", he was pointing the foreigner in the direction of sensitive state security sites.

Before the examining magistrate at the Algiers court, the "man in the pink nightie", as he is known to his close friends, defended himself by explaining that his relationship with this foreign national was of a sentimental nature. He met him at the Georges V Hotel in Paris, where Aref Mechakra works as a chasseur (baggage handler).

After serving a one-year prison sentence, he returned to France, where he pursued his activities on behalf of the Algerian services with greater zeal, in order to erase all traces of the charge of treason that has dogged him to this day.

The arrest of the "London rat" and the aborted kidnapping of Amir Boukhors made waves at DGDSE headquarters in Algiers. General Djebbar Mehenna urgently summoned Colonel Sadek, head of the security office at the Algerian embassy in Paris. A logical summons, after all, to draw up a plan to "save the soldier in the pink nightie and his sidekick the rat".

The moral of the story is that never before has a secret service in the world been so publicly exposed. The "London rat" had already had his cell phone stolen, containing numerous documents and recorded conversations between him and his sponsors.

Bank account numbers of numerous senior DGDSE officers, including those of General Mehenna and his right-hand man Colonel Zerguine Souahi, alias Mouad, and his other acolytes, Hocine Boulahia, whose real name is Hamid Oubelaïd, and General Abdelkader Haddad, alias Nacer El-Djen, acting Director of Internal Security.

The latter two own property in Spain, as does Lotfi Nezzar, son of the late General Khaled Nezzar, who owns a 98m2 apartment in Barcelona and a 6,000 m2 plot of land in Tarragona.  Bank accounts in Spain are passed on to the London rat for the transfer of large sums of money extorted from Algerian businessmen based in Europe.

This time, the "London rat" had his cell phones and computer equipment confiscated by the investigators. A veritable goldmine that he regularly carries around with him, and which is going to put a large number of senior officers and DGDSE agents in serious difficulty. A real scandal.