WC-135 Dispatched to Investigate Europe for Radiation

Posted on October 11, 2017October 11, 2017 by Denise Simon

Gotta look deep for information and there are two theories, one is Russia as the other is the medical industry. Humm….it goes something like this…. By the way, the dates could easily lineup.

Primer:

The Washington Free Beacon quotes Pentagon officials saying the unmanned underwater vehicle, code named Kanyon by the Pentagon, was test-launched from the Sarov-class submarine on November 27th.

What Pentagon names Kanyon is what in Russia is known as the «Ocean Multipurpose System Status-6» – a top secret weapon system the world has never seen anything like before. A year ago, Russian state-TV Channel One showed a glimpse of a graphic slide of the Status-6, later on said to be an unauthorized leak of a secret weapon development plan.

The drawings on the slide could very well be a purpose leak aimed at telling the world what weapon-systems are under development. The TV news covered the meeting in Sochi where President Putin was told by high-ranking officers in the Strategic forces how Russia’s nuclear deterrence strategy is developing. Moscow are looking for ways to overcome the United States’ Anti-Ballistic Missile Defence system, and one answer is to go deep with the nukes. Highly suggested reading more here.

Mysterious Radiation Spike Across Europe

Nuclear scientists are struggling to determine the source of small amounts of nuclear radiation that bloomed over Europe throughout January.

France’s IRSN institute, the public body for radiological and nuclear risks, announced in a statement on February 13 that Iodine-131, a radionuclide of human origin, was detected in trace amounts at ground-level atmosphere in continental Europe. First detected in the second week of January over northern Norway, Iodine-131 presence was then detected over Finland, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, France, and Spain. However, the levels have since returned to normal and scientists have yet to determine the source of the radiation.

Norway’s Radiation protection Authority (NRPA), which first detected the Iodine-131 over its northern Russian border, told Motherboard over the phone today that the levels present essentially no risk to human health. “I can assure you that the levels are low,” said a press a spokesperson.

But with a half-life of just eight days, the detection of Iodine-131 is proof of a recent release, said IRSN in its statement to the media.

Rumors are circulating, of course, that Russia has secretly tested a low-yield nuclear weapon in the Arctic, possibly in the Novaya Zemlya region—historically used for Russia’s nuclear tests. Iodine-131, discovered by two University of California researchers in 1938, is a radioisotope synonymous with the atomic bomb tests carried out by the US and Russia throughout the 1950s, and has recently presented threats from leaking during the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster and the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident.

But Iodine-131 is also found in the medical industry, commonly used for treating thyroid-related illnesses and cancers. Astrid Liland, head of the section for emergency preparedness at the NRPA, told Motherboard in an email today, “Since only Iodine-131 was measured, and no other radioactive substances, we think it originates from a pharmaceutical company producing radioactive drugs.
Iodine-131 is used for treatment of cancer.”

Particulate Iodine-131 (value +/- uncertainty) in the atmosphere(µBq/m3). Image: IRSN

Britain’s Society for Radiological Protection (SRP) also told Motherboard that the exclusive presence of Iodine-131 suggests the source is not a nuclear incident, but rather a medical facility such as a hospital or a supplier of radio-pharmaceuticals. “The release was probably of recent origin. Further than this it is impossible to speculate,” the SRP’s Brian Gornall told Motherboard in an email.

Still, where exactly that pharma company could be located is unknown. “Due to rapidly changing winds, it is not possible to track exactly where it came from. It points to a release source somewhere in Eastern Europe,” Liland told Motherboard.

The Iodine cloud prompted the United States Air Force to send over a specialized particle-sniffing aircraft to investigate. As per reports on The Aviationist, a US Air Force WC-135 deployed to Royal Air Force base Mildenhall in the UK on February 17, equipped to test the atmosphere over Europe for radiation. The aircraft’s last intercontinental expedition was to analyse the atmosphere over the Korean Peninsula following an alleged North Korean nuclear test.

The deployment spurred on rumors of a nuclear test from Russia, but a spokesperson for the the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), an international body that monitors nuclear weapon tests, told Motherboard in an email today, “Although some readings of I-131 above minimal detection level have been observed since beginning of year in Europe nothing extraordinary has been measured.”

The IRSN said in its statement that the data has now been shared between the members of the informal European network called Ring of Five, a group of organizations that research radiation levels in the atmosphere.

Russia has Provided N Korea Additional Hacking Platforms

Posted on October 11, 2017October 11, 2017 by Denise Simon

Hackers from North Korea are reported to have stolen a large cache of military documents from South Korea, including a plan to assassinate North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un.

Rhee Cheol-hee, a South Korean lawmaker, said the information was from his country’s defence ministry.

The compromised documents include wartime contingency plans drawn up by the US and South Korea.

They also include reports to the allies’ senior commanders.

Plans for the South’s special forces were reportedly accessed, along with information on significant power plants and military facilities in the South.

Mr Rhee belongs to South Korea’s ruling party, and sits on its parliament’s defence committee. He said some 235 gigabytes of military documents had been stolen from the Defence Integrated Data Centre, and that 80% of them have yet to be identified.

The hack took place in September last year. In May, South Korea said a large amount of data had been stolen and that North Korea may have instigated the cyber attack – but gave no details of what was taken.

North Korea denied the claim. The isolated state is believed to have specially-trained hackers based overseas, including in China. More here.

Russia is always part of the rogue nation process, it is curious of the timing as you read on. TransTeleCom is owned by Russia’s state-run railway company and has fiber optic cables that follow all the country’s main train lines, including all the way up to the North Korean border.

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Reuters: North Korea has opened a second internet connection with the outside world, this time via Russia, a move which cyber security experts said could give Pyongyang greater capability to conduct cyber attacks.

Previously traffic was handled via China Unicom (0762.HK) under a deal dating back to 2010. TransTeleCom now appears to be handling roughly 60 percent of North Korean internet traffic, while Unicom transmits the remaining 40 percent or so, Dyn said.

The new external connection was first reported by 38 North, a project of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

TransTeleCom declined to confirm any new routing deal with the North Korean government or its communications arm. In a statement, it said: “TransTeleCom has historically had a junction of trunk networks with North Korea under an agreement with Korea Posts and Telecommunications Corp signed in 2009.”

North Korea’s internet access is estimated to be limited to somewhere between a few hundred and just over 1,000 connections. These connections are vital for coordinating the country’s cyber attacks, said Bryce Boland, chief technology officer for the Asia-Pacific region at FireEye, a cyber-security company.

Boland said the Russian connection would enhance North Korea’s ability to command future cyber attacks.

Having internet routes via both China and Russia reduces North Korea’s dependence on any one country at a time when it faces intense geo-political pressures, he said.

Many of the cyber attacks conducted on behalf of Pyongyang came from outside North Korea using hijacked computers, Boland said. Those ordering and controlling the attacks communicate to hackers and hijacked computers from within North Korea.

“This will improve the resiliency of their network and increase their ability to conduct command and control over those activities,” Boland said.

The Washington Post reported earlier that the U.S. Cyber Command has been carrying out denial of service attacks against hackers from North Korea designed to limit their access to the internet. (wapo.st/2yRbg8w)

In February 2005, the TTK became the largest party in terms of the European Internet Exchange London Internet Exchange (LINX). In July 2005, the TTK became the fifth operator in Russia, received the right to provide long-distance services (after Rostelecom, Tsentrinfokoma, Golden Telecom and MTT). “TransteleCom” JSC provides communications services in Kazakhstan and for a map of locations and services, go here.

S Korea Pursuit of the Blackout Weapon

Posted on October 11, 2017October 11, 2017 by Denise Simon

As the United States flew B1 Lancers based out of Guam in exercises with South Korea and Japan over the Korean Peninsula, the Trump White House was meeting with Pentagon officials on expanded details and strategies with regard to North Korea.

Meanwhile, China continues to demand that all sides tone down the threatening talk and military activities. Has anyone asked China if they are accepting North Korea’s nuclear weapons as a standard condition?

Additionally, more sanctions are taking place including naming four cargo ships under North Korea’s authority from being received in several ports due to hidden illicit cargo transports as recently exposed in Egypt.

Moving to preemptive strategies, South Korea is developing a new weapon called a ‘blackout weapon’ which is not to be confused with an EMP. This blackout weapon, known as a graphite ordnance was developed and used by the United States during the first Gulf War and later in the Balkans.

The purpose of this weapon is to destroy the power grid in hostile nations as a part of the tactics applied where military actions are likely to escalate.

Known as “blackout bombs,” the warheads can be dropped by a plane over power stations. A form of cluster bombs, they split into several canister-like “sub-munitions,” which in turn release carbon graphite filaments that short-circuit the electricity supplies.

South Korea is adding the weapons to its arsenal as part of one of its recently-developed military programs, the so-called “Kill Chain,” which aims to detect an imminent missile attack from the North and react with a pre-emptive strike.

No shots are actually fired and there is no injury or death component to using the blackout bombs. The objective is the merely destroy power stations by short circuiting the systems.

The BLU-114 was developed as a highly classified weapon intended to effectively neutralize electrical power infrastructure without destroying it. This weapon also has been referred to as the ‘soft-bomb’ or the ‘graphite bomb’. Like many other cluster bombs it can be released from virtually any tactical aircraft operated by the United States or allied countries.

The BLU-114 disperses large numbers of chemically treated carbon graphite filaments which short-circuit electrical power distribution equipment such as transformers and switching stations. Used in large numbers it can even shut down the entire power grid of a given country. This weapon represents an excellent sample of non-lethal weaponry with near zero collateral damage.

The CBU-94 Blackout Bomb is the main application for the BLU-114 warhead. It was reported to be employed during the conflict of the former Yugoslavia in 1999 short-cincturing the electrical power infrastructure of Serbia during operation Allied Force. It has been suggested that the BLU-114 or a very similar warhead was integrated into the Tomahawk missile and the AGM-154 JSOW standoff weapon.

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A tactic known as a ‘kill chain’ does not represent death but rather it is a pillar as part of a first strike mission to begin the process of neutralizing battle-space.

Applying all intelligence including satellite reconnaissance as well as cyber and signals intelligence is part of the operations in the stepped process to execute war strategies.

The second and third prongs of South Korea’s defense strategy include missile defense and retaliatory strikes from aircraft in the event North Korea launches a missile. They include the Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) system, and the Korean Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMRR) plan. KAMD is a controversial plan to develop a system to intercept short-range missiles. KMRR is a concept for destroying Pyongyang in the event of a North Korean nuclear first strike.

But it is the first and most dangerous part of the new military strategy – the “Kill Chain” – that has diplomatic observers worried. Such a pre-emptive strike would almost certainly lead to war – and not just any war, but regional nuclear war.

Not an Inch of the US is Safe, Consider This…

Posted on October 5, 2017October 5, 2017 by Denise Simon

Equifax hacked, NSA hacked, active shooters, stolen identity, bad legislation being signed by presidents, townhalls being disrupted by activists, leaked classified material, nefarious people roaming Elm Street and violence on college campuses…..not a complete list but even top people in Washington DC are not protected either.

Check this out…

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John Kelly’s personal phone has been compromised for months

White House tech support discovered the suspected breach after Kelly turned his phone in to tech support staff this summer.

White House officials believe that chief of staff John Kelly’s personal cell phone was compromised, potentially as long ago as December, according to three U.S. government officials.

The discovery raises concerns that hackers or foreign governments may have had access to data on Kelly’s phone while he was secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and after he joined the West Wing.

Tech support staff discovered the suspected breach after Kelly turned his phone in to White House tech support this summer complaining that it wasn’t working or updating software properly.

Kelly told the staffers the phone hadn’t been working properly for months, according to the officials.

White House aides prepared a one-page September memo summarizing the incident, which was circulated through the administration.

A White House official, speaking for the administration, said Kelly hadn’t used the personal phone often since joining the administration. This person said Kelly relied on his government-issued phone for most communications.

The official, who did not dispute any of POLITICO’s reporting on the timeline of events or the existence of the memo, said Kelly no longer had possession of the device but declined to say where the phone is now.

Kelly has since begun using a different phone, one of the officials said, though he relies on his government phone when he’s inside the White House.

Several government officials said it was unclear when – or where – Kelly’s phone was first compromised. It is unclear what data may have been accessed, if any.

Kelly’s travel schedule prior to joining the administration in January is under review. The former Marine general retired in 2016 as chief of U.S. Southern Command.

Staffers reviewed the cell phone for several days and tried to decipher what had happened to it, the officials said. Many functions on the phone were not working.

The IT department concluded the phone had been compromised and should not be used further, according to the memo.

The document triggered concern throughout the West Wing about what information may have been exposed, one of the officials said.

The revelation comes amid an internal probe at the White House into personal email use. Senior officials, including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, have at times used personal email for government business, POLITICO has reported.

Additional storage lockers were recently added in the West Wing for personal devices and aides have been warned to limit personal cell phone use in the building.

Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow with the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, said the worst-case scenario would be “full access,” where an attacker would be able to essentially control a device, including its microphone and camera.

“The [attackers] I would be most worried about are nation-states or other actors who may have access to resale of commercial spyware sold to nation-states,” he said.

“The average user won’t notice anything at all. Really the only way to pick up on that is to do forensics on the phone,” he added.

This article was reported in coordination with the Project On Government Oversight, a nonprofit investigative watchdog organization.

Lies in the Sky, Terror on the Ground Part 2

Posted on September 27, 2017September 27, 2017 by Denise Simon

Part one of this investigation, go here.

Additional information regarding the requirements by TSA, go here.

Could 9/11 happen again? The answer is yes but it would not follow the same model as that fateful day. Follow this narrative to see the gaps.

Then, the new director of the FBI gave some compelling testimony this week about the drone threat.

The FAA was warned in 2009 that people with terrorist ties were licensed to fly and repair aircraft. Eight years later, it is, incredibly, still the case.

Nader Ali Sabouri Haghighi’s own pilot certificate, it turned out, had been revoked years earlier for providing false information, but the Federal Aviation Administration conveniently mailed him a new one. Haghighi had called the FAA hot line claiming to be a professional pilot named Daniel George who had lost his license. He then recited George’s license number and other personal details that he’d obtained from their business dealings. Without asking further questions, the FAA agent sent Haghighi a license with George’s name on it.

It ought to have been difficult for the black-haired, brown-eyed Iranian to use a pilot’s license belonging to a fair-skinned, gray-haired American nearly 20 years his senior, except for one factor: FAA pilot licenses do not include photographs of the pilot. Haghighi was able to pull off his ruse for nearly four years until Danish police found the license in the rubble of the crash.

Almost a decade after Haghighi’s brazen identify theft, the FAA still does not include pilot photos on its licenses, and the agency does not fully vet pilot information before issuing them credentials. Last year, a leading congressional overseer of the FAA, then-Representative John Mica, called US pilot licenses “a joke” and said that a day pass to Disney World in his native Florida contains more sophisticated security measures.

FAA officials defend their licensing practices, noting that pilots are also required to carry a government-issued ID such as a driver’s license to prove their identity. The pilot certificate, they say, is more an indicator of the pilot’s level of training than a security tool, and commercial airports and airlines generally issue their own IDs for access to tarmacs, planes, and other secure areas.

But the flawed airman licenses are part of a troubling pattern of lax oversight of more than 1 million FAA-approved airmen — including pilots, mechanics, flight attendants, and other aviation personnel — that has made the agency vulnerable to fraud, and the public vulnerable to those who mean to do harm, a Spotlight Team review has found.

After the 9/11 attacks, Congress called on the FAA to overhaul its licensing for more than 600,000 US-certified pilots. But the FAA’s changes so far have been modest, such as making licenses with higher-quality materials to reduce forgeries. Today, FAA security procedures remain geared more toward the convenience of pilots than the needs of a nation engaged in a “war on terror,” often failing to challenge airmen’s claims on their applications and seemingly unaware of deceptions.

Haghighi, for example, continued to finagle help from the FAA even after he went to jail in Denmark for flying without a valid license and endangering his passenger. After his release, the FAA issued him a medical certificate that helped him land a job at an airline in Indonesia in 2014. All he had to do was change one letter in the spelling of Sabouri and alter his birth year. An official at another federal agency eventually tipped off the FAA to Haghighi’s duplicity.

Or take the case of Richard Hoagland. Beginning in 1994, he purchased homes, registered a plane, obtained a pilot license, and even got married under the name Terry Symansky, according to court records. The ruse wasn’t discovered until Symansky’s nephew was doing family research on Ancestry.com and found that his late uncle was listed as alive. The FAA never caught on that the real Terry Symansky had been dead since 1991, issuing Hoagland a new private pilot certificate in Symansky’s name as recently as 2010. Hoagland is now serving a two-year sentence in federal prison for identity theft.

FAA procedures also make it easy for pilots to hide damaging information, by simply not reporting it. That’s because the agency relies on them to self-report felony convictions and other crimes that could lead to license revocation. Among the licensed pilots currently listed in the airman registry are Carlos Licona and Paul Grebenc, United Airlines pilots who were sentenced to jail in Scotland earlier this year for attempting to fly a commercial airliner with alcohol in their blood. Under FAA rules, an alcohol-related offense, especially related to flying, can be grounds for license revocation or suspension, though the FAA decides on a case by case basis.

But as of Sept. 1, Grebenc and Licona were still listed in the FAA’s active airman registry. Agency records showed that as of January, four months after the men were arrested, there were no reported incidents or enforcement actions related to the pilots.

FAA officials stress that they are not the police officers of the skies, leaving that job to an alphabet soup of agencies including the Transportation Security Administration, Homeland Security, and the FBI. The FAA merely issues the airman certificates and keeps the database that helps these investigators do their work. And, while FAA officials admit they don’t routinely investigate information that pilots, mechanics, and others list on license applications, the TSA says it continuously reviews the FAA database against the Terrorist Screening Database, additional terrorism-related information, and other government watch lists. Since 2010, the TSA has completed 28 million airman threat assessments.

But it is hardly a fail-safe system. Outside reviewers have repeatedly found that the FAA’s Airman Registry is riddled with errors and gaps, making it difficult for law enforcement officials to rely on. More than 43,000 pilots received licenses even though they did not provide the FAA with a permanent address, according to a 2013 audit by the Department of Transportation inspector general. Two years earlier, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general found that 8,000 of the Social Security numbers on file belonged to dead people, in part because the FAA doesn’t purge its files of dated information. Another 15,000 didn’t match the airmen’s personal information on file.

When asked whether the FAA vets the information on airman certificate applications, officials did not answer directly. The FAA issued a statement reading, “Pilots are expected to provide accurate and complete information on all FAA forms.”

Agency officials also said that, when pilots apply for medical certificates — a crucial document needed to fly — they conduct a one-time check against the national drivers’ database for drug- or alcohol-related convictions.

The lack of accurate information can have serious consequences. Last October, when a student pilot from Jordan intentionally crashed a twin-engine plane near a major defense contractor in East Hartford, Conn., law enforcement officials initially feared terrorism and converged on the Illinois address he had given the FAA. But the student, Feras M. Freitekh, had listed the address of a family friend, a place where he had never lived, so law enforcement descended on a house nearly 900 miles from his actual home.

Most worrisome, even with ongoing TSA vetting, people with suspected or proven ties to terrorism still keep active airman certificates.

FAA-Approved offenders

Mark Schiffer couldn’t believe what he was finding.

Schiffer, the chief scientist for a company that helps banks detect fraud, was simply testing an algorithm to check names against publicly available watch lists that included suspected terrorists and other bad actors. In April 2009, he was using data from the FAA Airman Registry for his test because the list was large and readily available.

But he kept turning up terrorists.

There was Fawzi Mustapha Assi, who was on the FBI’s most-wanted list for five years before being convicted of providing material support to Hezbollah in 2008. Though imprisoned, he had an active pilot’s license, which never expires. His release was expected in a few years.

Also on the list was Myron Tereshchuk, an FAA-certified mechanic and student pilot, who was convicted in federal court in 2005 for possession of biological agents or toxins that could be used as weapons. Tereshchuk was also in prison, but he, too, was expected to be released in a few years.

And there was Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the bombing of Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Scottish authorities released him in 2009 on compassionate grounds after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He still had a valid aircraft dispatcher certificate from the FAA.

“Holy cow,” Schiffer said to himself.

In all, Schiffer and his company, Safe Banking Systems of New York, confirmed eight matches between FAA-approved airmen and various watch lists.

“The results were as unexpected as they are chilling,” Safe Banking Systems said in a June 2009 report distributed to nearly 40 lawmakers and top government officials, including the FAA administrator and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

But no one responded until a New York Times reporter asked the Transportation Security Administration about the certified airmen with terror ties listed in the Safe Banking Systems report. The following day, in June 2009, the TSA advised the FAA to revoke airman certificates for six of the eight names that SBS gave to the reporter.

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, in an 18-month investigation released in July 2011, found that the TSA’s ability to screen airmen for national security threats is hampered by the quality of information the FAA provides. The TSA could not properly vet thousands of airmen because of missing or inaccurate data within the FAA’s registry, according to the report. From 2007 to 2010, the TSA recommended the revocation of 27 licenses, but that number would likely have been larger had all of the information been complete.

The inspector general also found that the TSA doesn’t screen for broader criminal activity, allowing airmen who “have outstanding warrants or are known fugitives” to escape detection. The IG said that one US-approved pilot was actually a “drug kingpin” serving 20 years in a foreign prison.

Since then, the TSA and FAA have stepped up their screening for national security threats, reviewing the FAA database four times a year to ensure accuracy.

The Spotlight Team wanted to check whether the heightened scrutiny has improved the FAA’s record in preventing bad actors from having pilot’s licenses. At the request of the Globe, Safe Banking Systems tested the public part of the airman registry and again found problems.

Running the same name-matching program in January 2017, SBS found five active airmen on watch lists with possible ties to terrorism or international crime, including Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh, a former Air Force mechanic who bought a one-way ticket to Turkey in 2015. His packed bags included flash drives with maps, a letter to his wife about jihad, and his Federal Aviation Administration airman certificate, according to court records. When he was arrested, Pugh was headed to Syria to offer himself as an aircraft mechanic.

In May, Pugh was sentenced to 35 years in prison for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State, though he is appealing.

On Aug. 1, Pugh’s name still appeared on the FAA’s list of active airmen. But Pugh was removed by Sept. 1, days after the Globe requested his records. FAA officials now say that Pugh’s license was actually revoked in 2015, though on Friday, they could not explain why his name continued to be on the active list for another two years.

In addition, SBS turned up a long-time American Airlines mechanic who attempted to broker a deal that would have moved seven Airbus A300s to Iran, which the United States has identified as a state sponsor of terrorism; a Florida businessman who was planning on illegally shipping navigation systems used for steering planes, ships, and missiles to Turkey; and an Irish pilot sanctioned by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control for his connections to a company and plane that were also sanctioned. The mechanic and Florida businessman both have been released from prison, while the Irish pilot has not been charged with a crime.

In August, when the Globe requested information about the airmen identified by SBS, FAA records contained no indication that any of the five had faced FAA enforcement action.

“Have things really changed? Does the government know who they are dealing with?” said David Schiffer, Safe Banking Systems’ chief executive officer (and Mark Schiffer’s father). “The fact that some are licensed while still incarcerated is unbelievable. We certainly view this as a very serious threat to national security.”

A History of Deceit

Long before the crash in Denmark, Nader Haghighi had spent years duping the FAA. When his name came across the desk of federal investigator Robert Mancuso in late 2008, Haghighi had already racked up a significant criminal record for stealing a plane, had had his pilot’s license revoked, and had even been deported from the United States in 2006, according to federal investigative reports and court records. And the FAA was receiving two new calls per month about Haghighi’s scams.

Mancuso, a special agent for the US Department of Transportation Inspector General’s Computer Crimes Unit, began investigating a report that Haghighi had tried to illegally obtain a pilot’s license online using Daniel George’s name. Mancuso quickly discovered that George was just one more victim of a con man who used at least a dozen aliases and falsely claimed to have a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a job at Lockheed Martin.

But Haghighi made a mistake when he initially tried to get George’s license. He had collected George’s personal information when he hired the professional pilot to fly a plane for him. But when Haghighi entered the stolen information online to get a copy of George’s license, Haghighi neglected to change the e-mail address on the account, so George received notification about the new license and contacted the FAA. The agency intercepted the certificate before it was sent out.

And Mancuso thought that was the end of it, though he kept investigating Haghighi.

Then, when Haghighi crashed with George’s license in his possession a few years later, Mancuso made a stunning discovery: Haghighi had found yet another way to get a license. He called the FAA directly, posing as George and complaining that he had never received the certificate he had requested weeks earlier. The FAA, without further investigation, mailed out a new copy to Haghighi’s post office box in Texas, something an FAA employee told Mancuso was “not uncommon for our office to do, based on a phone call from the airman.”

“I was shocked,” said Mancuso, who traveled to Denmark to testify against Haghighi. “I assumed that some type of fraud alert would be placed on Mr. George’s record to prohibit this from happening, especially when it was sent to the same bad address.”

The FAA said pilots today can no longer request duplicate certificates by telephone, but they can get them online or by mail.

During his trial in Denmark, Haghighi tried yet another scam, insisting that his real name wasn’t Haghighi or George but the one on another passport recovered from the crashed plane. But the judge didn’t believe him and sentenced Haghighi to 10 months in prison for endangering passengers, including children, flying without a valid license or a required co-pilot on multiple occasions.

Even then, Haghighi was not through tricking the FAA. A year after his release from prison, in February 2014, he contacted the agency to secure another medical certificate, which is needed for pilots to fly.

On his application, he changed his name from “Sabouri” to “Saboori” and his birth year from 1972 to 1973. According to a US Department of Transportation investigative report, Haghighi lied repeatedly on the form, claiming that he had not visited a medical professional in three years, even though emergency responders had found him unconscious inside a crashed plane just two years earlier.

His word was good enough for the FAA, which gave Haghighi a new certificate that he promptly used to land a job with Susi Air, an Indonesian airline.

Flying again

Haghighi is an extreme example, but his case is by no means isolated. At least one other pilot on the FAA registry, Re Tabib, won his license back after he went to prison for attempting to smuggle aircraft parts to Iran and was formally declared a security threat by the TSA.

In 2006, federal officers seized thousands of aircraft parts, some packed in suitcases, and “shopping lists” from the California home of Tabib, an Iranian-born FAA certified pilot. He was arrested on charges of attempting to illegally export parts for F-14 Tomcat jets to Iran.

Tabib, a veteran airman who at one time piloted private flights for the designer Gianni Versace, pleaded guilty and served time in federal prison from July 2007 until January 2009. Yet, according to court records, the FAA issued him an Airline Transport Pilot certificate, the highest-level license for pilots, just three months after his release, allowing him to fly large jets.

Unlike other pilots with a criminal record, Tabib made no attempt to hide his past, alerting the agency about his felony conviction on an application form that calls on candidates to disclose any previous arrests or convictions. But the FAA — which can suspend flying privileges for anyone with an ATP license it judges not of “good moral character” — did not revoke or suspend his license.

As of August, FAA records revealed no incidents or enforcement records connected to Tabib. The agency declined to comment further on Tabib’s case but said it examines possible violations of the “good moral character” standard on a case by case basis. The agency said that a criminal conviction is not automatic grounds for action against an ATP license.

In June 2009, just months after Tabib received his new certificates from the FAA, Safe Banking Systems, the New York fraud detection company, matched Tabib’s name to public watch lists and passed it along with others to The New York Times.

The TSA responded to the story by advising the FAA to revoke Tabib’s certificate. Tabib’s airman certificates gave him “insider access” that, combined with his connections to Iran, could render him a security threat, according to a 2010 decision by an administrative law judge.

Tabib fought the decision for years and finally reached a settlement with the TSA in 2012. His attorney, Robert Schultz, said the law permitting the TSA to revoke airman licenses is unconstitutional because it treats airmen as presumed guilty without proper due process.

“Mr. Tabib was a professional pilot who was denied the right to earn a living for years based on mere suspicion,” Schultz said, referring to the TSA threat assessment. Last year, the FAA issued him new commercial pilot and flight instructor certificates.

This time, Tabib’s name was kept out of the FAA database of active airmen that the public can download to review the full list of pilots and mechanics. As a result, his name did not appear this year when Safe Banking Systems checked for airmen who had been on terror watch lists. More than 350,000 airmen were excluded from the public database at their request.

Recent social media posts show Tabib in front of a King Air C90 turboprop aircraft. A photo from this spring shows him wearing an aviation headset in the cockpit of a plane at the Azadi airport in Iran. His Facebook page says he’s now a flight instructor and pilot at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Calif. Tabib is flying again.

Con air

Mario Jose Donadi-Gafaro, a US-licensed pilot, died along with six others in a horrific plane crash in Venezuela in 2008 when his plane plummeted into a bustling neighborhood a few minutes after takeoff. He never made a distress call, and questions still remain nine years later about the cause of the accident.

But another mystery is how Donadi-Gafaro, a pilot who also moonlighted as a drug trafficker, kept a US pilot’s license as long as he did.

Donadi-Gafaro’s criminal career began at least a decade before the crash. His initial US felony drug conviction in 1999 for importing cocaine into Miami International Airport should, under FAA rules, have immediately triggered agency scrutiny of his license.

But even after the pilot was convicted a second time — this time in Venezuela — in 2006 for attempting to transport cocaine on an aircraft, the FAA did not revoke Donadi-Gafaro’s license. Instead, the agency gave him a promotion. He applied for and was issued his Air Transport Pilot’s License, the gold standard of US airmen ratings, on July 23, 2007. Almost a decade after the crash in Venezuela that killed him, the FAA still listed Donadi-Gafaro as an “active” pilot, including him in its database as recently as March 2016.

The agency finally deactivated his license in 2016 after the Globe began asking questions about it. The FAA declined to comment on whether Donadi-Gafaro had reported his conviction, saying that information is protected under the Privacy Act.

‘We don’t know who they are’

A frustrated John Mica held up a plastic card as he addressed a 2016 hearing of his House subcommittee on the topic of “securing our skies.” The card, borrowed from then-Representative Tammy Duckworth, a pilot, was an example of a modern FAA certificate.

“An airline pilot has access to the controls, flying the plane,” said Mica, but a US pilot’s license lacks basic security features and includes only a decorative picture. “The only photo on this license are the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur. Orville and Wilbur, I blew it up here. OK?”

To make his point, the congressman held up an entry pass for Disney World. The card, decorated with Minnie Mouse, has a magnetic strip that is capable of linking identities to fingerprints. This allows Disney to track when cardholders enter or leave the park. The FAA license is primitive by comparison.

“This is Minnie Mouse,” said Mica, referring to the Disney pass. Then, nodding to Duckworth’s certificate in his other hand, he added, “and this is Mickey Mouse.”

Congress long ago called on the FAA to implement significant changes. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 mandated not only pictures of pilots, but also that pilot licenses include biometric capabilities such as fingerprints or iris scans.

“Fifteen years later, we see a system that has not complied with the laws that we have passed multiple times,” said Mica. “We have pilots that are flying planes. We don’t know who they are.”

The FAA said that it has made some improvements. In 2003, the agency switched from paper licenses to new “security-enhanced airman certificates,” the FAA said. The plastic documents include an FAA seal and, according to the FAA, are resistant to tampering, alteration, and counterfeiting.

But lawmakers have repeatedly challenged the agency on why the FAA has not followed congressional mandates regarding the licenses. Mica, in particular, voiced his concern publicly about the licenses in letters and hearings in 2010, 2011, 2013, and most recently, last year.

In 2017, the former congressman says he’s still concerned about the lack of progress and failure to have a “credible” document.

“We tried to get them to comply, but they never did fully comply,” Mica said. “Any credit card in your wallet has better capability.”

Many pilots and flight instructors opposed the photo IDs, some complaining that it could add to the cost of licensing without improving national security. In written comments to the FAA, pilots said the photo on the license was unnecessary because they are already required to carry other photo IDs — and because airport officials never ask to see pilot certificates anyway.

“Many of our members describe this effort as ‘security theater,’ putting a photograph on a document that authorities never ask for,” said Doug Stewart, chairman of the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators, in a 2011 letter.

“What is most critical in the issuance of an FAA pilot certificate from a security standpoint is the accurate establishment of the pilot’s identity, background descriptors, and qualifications,” wrote Robb Powers, chairman of the national security committee at the Air Line Pilots Association, International. “Presently, FAA does not verify the identity of the person requesting a pilot certificate other than through visual inspection of the individual’s driver’s license or passport.”

As of last month, the agency said it, along with the Department of Transportation, is “still evaluating options for including a photo,” a project expected to cost about $1 billion.

While the FAA has pondered additional security requirements for more than a decade, special interest groups have worked to quietly relax regulation for pilots. In a victory for advocates of general aviation, Congress eased the medical requirements for pilots seeking a basic license, requiring only a visit to the family doctor and participation in an online course provided by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. And the FAA reauthorization bill now in the Senate includes an amendment to roll back some commercial pilot training requirements enacted after a 2009 regional airline crash that killed 50 and was blamed on pilot error.

‘What a nightmare’

Early into his new job, officials at Susi Air in Indonesia grew suspicious of Nader Haghighi and discovered that his passport number belonged to someone else. They alerted the United States.

Robert Mancuso, the Department of Transportation investigator who tracked Haghighi for years as the con man fooled authorities while using many aliases, including Nader Schruder, learned about the latest escapade and sent an e-mail to FAA officials.

“Hello all! It’s my yearly e-mail regarding Mr. Nader Schruder. He seems to have popped back up in Indonesia with his revoked FAA certificate . . . Can you also run a search for any pilots with the name ‘Nader Ali Saboori’ to make sure he doesn’t have another certificate.”

The FAA responded the next day: “I do show a record for SABOORI; Nader Ali with a First Class Medical certificate issued 2/27/14 . . . It’s probably the same airman.”

Haghighi soon after found himself without a job. He left Indonesia and was detained during a stopover in Panama after US authorities put out an alert. In November 2014, Haghighi pleaded guilty in US District Court in Houston to four counts of identity theft.

George, the man whose identity Haghighi stole, wrote a letter to the judge detailing the personal toll — hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue from potential pilot positions and thousands of hours spent trying to figure out where Haghighi would turn up next.

“What a nightmare this man has been to me personally and professionally,” George wrote.

After Haghighi was released from federal prison in October 2016, he was deported to his native Iran — ending roughly 15 years of deception.

“It’s sad it went on this long. He was putting the public’s life in danger,” said Mancuso, now a special agent at another federal office of the inspector general.

Haghighi, in Facebook messages to a Globe reporter, expressed no remorse for his behavior and described the FAA in bluntly critical terms: “know the right person, pay the right amount in a right way and then the sky turns green.”

The Globe could find no evidence that Haghighi has a US pilot’s license today, but a Facebook photo update in March suggests he hasn’t given up hope: He was smiling from the cockpit of a plane with his hand inches away from the controls.

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