NSS: Large amount of misinformation passed to Azerbaijani spies

Employees of Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) in 2013 exposed a simple and primitive mechanism of Azerbaijani special services that used the opportunities of social networks – for lack of an alternative.

According to NSS, the mass media had reported about the use of fake accounts “Seyran Dervishyan”, «S Dr» и «Tigran Dervishyan» on social networks, especially Одноклассники website, to establish contacts with citizens who served or are serving in the armed forces of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh Republic with the aim of obtaining information of a military nature from them.

This information spread among the population, especially young people visiting Одноклассники website, as a result of which many citizens of Armenia and the NKR contacted the NSS bodies on their own initiative to provide information about suspicious persons who tried to get into contact with them on Одноклассники website.

Thus, “Seyran Derv”, “S.S”, “Samvel Samvel”, “Ա Ս”, “Артем Арутюнов”, “Albert Mnacakanyan”, “A M”, “Ruben Hayrapetyan”, “(((((((RH)))))))”, “Gevorg Saroyan”, “Alik Mesropyan”, “Sergey Karapetyan” and other fake profiles attracted the attention of Armenian NSS. “Powerful” Azerbaijani spies hid behind those names.

While resorting to those antiquated methods, Azerbaijani secret services did not even change the myths they used previously to establish contacts with Armenian citizens. In almost all the cases they continued to introduce themselves either as Armenians who served in this or that Armenian military unit and now trade in furniture, accessories or household goods in Georgia, Istanbul or Russia or as Armenians working with Diaspora organizations.

Eventually, Armenian NSS bodies passed - via citizens of Armenia and the NKR – a large amount of misinformation to Azerbaijani spies, based on which “overjoyed’ Azerbaijani special services reported the achievements of their intelligence service. This misled the Azerbaijani authorities who for their part occasionally make unfounded bellicose statements.

Armenian NSS expresses gratitude to the Armenian citizens who displayed patriotism and also calls on others to refrain from suspicious contacts on social networks and to apply to NSS in such cases.