Spies and lies in anti-salmon farm activist’s book
Chapter in the book by eco-activist Alexandra Morton linking local company to Israeli spies is a “lie”, says owner of security agency hired to keep the peace during a 2018 anti-salmon farm protest.
By Fabian Dawson
SeaWestNews
One of the most excerpted chapters in a new book by anti-salmon farm activist Alexandra Morton, who claims she was under surveillance by veterans from the Israeli elite intelligence units during a 2018 summer protest, is a ‘lie’, said the company that actually provided security services during the incident.
“It’s a pure fabrication…a total misrepresentation and I am pretty outraged by this,” said Peter Corrado, the owner of Black Cube Strategies and Consulting Ltd, a company he formed in Campbell River, which was hired to act as a buffer between the protestors and the fish farm workers.
Corrado told SeaWestNews, he plans to raise the matter with the publisher, Penguin Random House, and is weighing other options to repair his reputation.
Penguin Random House has not responded to SeaWestNews inquiries.
Excerpts from Morton’s book published in the Toronto Star, refers to her being tailed by employees of a company named Black Cube, in boats with blacked-out windows, which had been hired by a fish farmer.
Morton wrote: “The website BlackCube.com struck me as so sinister I thought it was a hoax. Then I came across the MSNBC exposé on the company that had aired in May 2018. The victims of this company’s surveillance said Black Cube operatives aggressively tried to uncover details of their lives, looking for points of leverage for their client.
“I went back to the website, where the descriptive phrases sounded like something out of a thriller: A select group of veterans from the Israeli elite intelligence units … tailored solutions … litigation challenges …
The company listed “Cyber Intelligence” as one of their services. My email had been hacked two weeks prior to receiving the call from the fisherman. I noticed because emails stopped coming in.
Through the recovery process, I learned that my password had been changed and that someone in Toronto had logged in to my account. Whoever hacked my account would have had the opportunity to download every email and attachment I’d sent and received for years.
Since I don’t believe there is such a thing as online “security,” and I wasn’t planning anything illegal, I hadn’t been too concerned about the breach. Now I started to wonder whether Black Cube was behind the hack.”
The problem is Morton’s link to BlackCube.com and the MSNBC expose is about a private Israeli security firm with offices in Tel Aviv, Madrid and London.
The actual security agency that was hired by the fish farmer, Mowi Canada West, then known as Marine Harvest, is a Campbell River company, established by Corrado, called Black Cube Strategies and Consulting Ltd.
“We were hired to be to be buffer between the protestors and the farm workers…we hired locals to do the job to ensure everyone was safe and we had some local ex-police officers giving us advice…we have no links to the Israeli company or Mossad (Israel’s intelligence agency) ,” said Corrado.
As to claims that his employees were eavesdropping on the protestors and conducting computer hacking operations to find out what their plans were, Corrado said that information mostly came from the activists.
“They held an open house in Victoria to let the public know about their protests and where they were going and I sent one of my employees to attend…He told them he was from a security company and was welcomed by the people at the open house.
“They gave him all the information,” said Corrado.
“This chapter is a radical misinterpretation of what actually happened…it’s a lie and I intend to do something about it.”
To bolster the narrative of foreign spies following her and the protestors, Morton writes: “Although I did not recognize any of the crew, some of them were clearly local. One seemed much more European in dress and style; we saw his suitcase, which had tiny wheels, sitting on the back deck when he arrived — definitely not a local style of luggage. We were friendly in our banter back and forth with the men on these boats, but there was nothing friend-like in their approach.
I called out to the man with the wheelie suitcase, “Are you with Black Cube?”
He called back, “No, I am in a boat.”
A Mowi official present during this exchange said the description fits a senior company executive, who was inspecting the farms at that time and not anyone hired to do the security work.
“This book should be in the fiction section,” the Mowi official told SeaWestNews.
Among others who claim ex-Israeli agents had been hired by Mowi is Morton’s ally, Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, well known for his boat-ramming tactics in the name of ocean conservation.
He wrote during the summer 2018 protest that : “the salmon farms are now so paranoid that they have hired an Israeli intimidation firm called Black Cube. These are the same people that Harvey Weinstein hired to intimidate those who accused him of sexual harassment.”
“So what we have here are foreign agents from Israel hired by foreign agents from Norway with the backing of the Trudeau government to defend the atrocities of salmon farming against indigenous nations and Canadian conservationists,” wrote Watson.
Morton, who is peddling her book across the country has had rave reviews by the media, with none of them challenging any of her claims.
It was launched as the fish farmers are in Federal Court seeking a judicial review and an injunction related to the order by Ottawa to remove their operations in BC’s Discovery Islands within 18 months. This decision was made by Federal Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan last December after she was pressured by anti-fish farm activists, including Morton.
The farm closures are expected to cost 1,500 jobs mainly on Vancouver Island.
Morton’s credibility has also been challenged by the Federal Court judge assigned to manage the case.
In rejecting an attempt by Morton to provide an affidavit to assist the court, Judge Mandy Aylen said that : “Morton’s proposed affidavit contains untested hearsay evidence, contains improper opinion evidence under the guise of being factual evidence.”
The judge agreed with the fish farmers, who are challenging Ottawa’s decision to remove them from the Discovery Islands, that Morton’s proposed affidavit “constitutes an attack on the science presented by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and goes far beyond providing general background information” to assist the court.
Image – Screenshot from the video posted to the RV Martin Sheen’s Facebook page showing security employees of Black Cube Strategies and Consulting Ltd Campbell River.