Ordinary Australian tradies combating foreign spies and terrorists

SPARKIES, mechanics and locksmiths are ASIO’s newest recruits for domestic surveillance as spy numbers hit an all-time high.

EXCLUSIVE

The ranks of Australia’s domestic intelligence agents has spiked to their biggest level in history with many of the new recruits being spies like us, including locksmiths, accountants, mechanics and sparkies.

ASIO has confirmed it has hit a milestone in personnel numbers with a focus specifically on the recruitment this year of surveillance agents for the ever present threat of terrorism but also to combat an alarming rise in “espionage and foreign interference by clandestine actors” in Australia.

The agency has also had to push recruitment to specifically cope with the security assessments to be made on the 12,000 Syrian refugees Australia has agreed to accept, almost half of which are already here and an unspecific number already rejected on security grounds.

The spy group now has 1800 personnel many of whom tasked with combating terror but also a noted increased incursion of foreign agents targeting the private and government sector’s critical infrastructure, in the latter case notably the defence, intelligence and science industries.

That activity has been noted to specifically be looking to undermine the political, economic and security sovereignty of the nation.

It is known many of those recruited are ordinary citizens including lawyers, accountants and IT gurus but also surprisingly tradesmen and women.

Sparkies, locksmiths, mechanics and accountants are joining the ranks of Australia’s domestic intelligence agents. Picture: istock

ASIO has specifically targeted tradies including electrical, mechanical, lock-smithing and building services to convert them into surveillance officers with “several thousand” trade-related applications from all over Australia received.

Women were also part of its concerted campaign to broaden capability and capacity of the organisation with females now representing 45 per cent of the workforce.

“ASIO current staffing numbers reflects the largest staffing number in the organisation’s history,” a spokeswoman confirmed to News Corp Australia.

She added it would be “imprudent” to comment in detail on recruitment but confirmed candidates with a trade background were targeted for unspecific spywork with a continuous acceptance of applications this year rather than just a twice a year intake.

Intelligence sources told News Corp the ramp-up followed realisation that as Islamic State continues to lose ground in the Middle East, the number of persons of interest aligned to the extremist group or indirectly to its ideology in this country was continuing to rise.

ASIO has specifically targeted Aussie tradies during its latest recruitment drive. Picture: istock

This included Australian nationals but also individuals with extremist intent and hatred for the West from overseas, predominantly South East Asia.

They described the domestic terror fight as already “stretched” given the number of individuals being monitored, predominantly in Sydney and Melbourne, as sympathetic to jihadist groups overseas but also a widening of the gap between the alarming rise in espionage attacks both in person and in cyberspace and ASIO’s ability to detect and mitigate those assaults.

Foreign espionage agents are noted to be from China and Russia but also allies from South East Asia and were testing Australia’s responses.

The Attorney General’s Department last week issued a public advice update noting the threat level remained at “probable” and there remained credible intelligence to suggest there were individuals influenced from overseas with “intent and capability” to carry out terror attacks in Australia. There had been five terror plots disrupted so far this year.

Australians have been killed or injured in almost every major terrorist attack since 2001, both locally and overseas. The department also noted a significant rise in hostile cyberattacks.