RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – “I am not a spy”, declared an Army lieutenant in charge of ‘Caliche’, a secret project of the Chilean Joint Command destined to snoop on communications in Peru and Bolivia.
His case, currently before the Supreme Court, revealed a plot where suspicions of leaking information to “foreign powers” and the violation of weak military security converge.
What started as a simple theft of cosmetic creams inside the military revealed a case with espionage overtones in which trips to Tacna, a convicted soldier, and the nation’s security was involved.
The facts date back to early 2014, when Lieutenant Maximiliano Arancibia was discovered with more than 72,000 classified files in his possession.
A one-terabyte hard drive contained the documents in 7,000 folders entered without authorization. The device was even contaminated with computer viruses.
Worse still, a report from the National Directorate of Army Intelligence (DINE) leaves the door open to the possibility that the highly-sensitive military documents could have found their way into the hands of foreign powers.
Despite being sentenced to four years in prison, Arancibia’s punishment is still pending. Everything will have to be resolved by the Supreme Court in a case that has been petrified in the country’s highest court since 2019.
FROM CREAMS TO NATIONAL SECURITY
The story goes like this. According to BioBioChile’s Investigation Unit information, the events took place in the First Armored Brigade “Coraceros” of the Army, based in Arica.
It was the night of May 14, 2014, when one of the captains of the repartition claimed that some high-value cosmetic creams had been stolen from him. They had been taken from his bachelor’s room in the Officers’ Casino.
They quickly notified the Military Prosecutor’s Office, which led to the PDI being ordered to take action. The Robbery Brigade arrived at the military compound the following day. The investigations bore fruit.
The target? Lieutenant Maximiliano Arancibia, belonging to the Electronic Warfare Platoon (COMINT). A unit created in 2005, then dependent on the former Infantry Regiment “Rancagua”.
Soon after, it was transferred to the Briaco Coraceros, and after the events, in 2014, it was transferred to the Llaitún Intelligence Regiment. According to a DINE official document, in 2017, it had a total force of 34 men.
In Arancibia’s room, the detectives found the creams in a box and unauthorized devices that immediately raised suspicions about their contents. These included a flash drive and a one-terabyte hard drive. All of them were seized by Military Security Office personnel.
THE FILES
According to the expert report ordered to the Army Intelligence Regiment “Soberanía”, Lieutenant Arancibia kept in his possession 7,004 folders, with 72,213 files classified as secret and of “high military sensitivity”.
To this day, the purpose of the uniformed officer to have extracted information from the institutional servers, which are heavily guarded, is still unknown. Even the connection of these intrusive devices was forbidden, while the rest of the information was to be kept under lock and key in a safe.
In any case, the material corresponded to encrypted information that – according to the report prepared by the same department – in case of “being mishandled, lost or misplaced by the officer, could cause serious damage to the institution and even to the country”.
SNOOPING ABROAD
Among the files, there are blueprints, intelligence records, and even a folder labeled “HIKO,” which contained compendiums of communications regarding the Joint Command of the Armed Forces of Peru.
However, the bulk of what was found is related to Caliche, a top-secret Army project on which Arancibia worked.
Basically, it is a piece of machinery implemented by the Electronic Warfare Platoon, whose computer system was acquired from DRS, a U.S. company, for a total amount that is still being kept secret.
The objective was to snoop on the communications of neighboring countries, mainly Peru and Bolivia, through the interception of radio frequencies.
According to a colonel who testified in the middle of the judicial process against Arancibia, all the information gathered by the project was finally taken to the Northern Joint Intelligence Fusion Center (Cenficnor), where it was processed to generate intelligence reports.
ESPIONAGE?
Once the contents of the hard disk were known, the alerts went off. A summary investigation was immediately ordered, which revealed that the security measures were breached on more than one occasion by Arancibia.
Colleagues suspected he was “storing too much information, money, and other items”. They even informed his superior that he was irregularly keeping a hard disk connected to the servers specially dedicated to Caliche.
It is clear from the background information contained in the investigative file that to do so, he had altered the computers since the access ports were blocked precisely to avoid the connection of intrusive devices.
The captain in charge of Arancibia simply stood idly by without warning the Military Prosecutor’s Office of the situation.
The administrative investigation ended with a punishment of two days’ imprisonment for the accused.
“I AM NOT A SPY”
That inquiry was followed by a criminal one in charge of the military judiciary. The military prosecutor gave a statement to Arancibia himself. In his speech, he acknowledged negligence but denied giving the information to third parties.
He stated that he stored all this secret information for “a better analysis of my performance (…) That is why I kept certain sensitive and secret material which, due to my job and performance, I commonly worked with in my unit”.
“In no case did I share this information with anyone unrelated to my profession (…) nor have I commercialized it or lent it for duplication or copying. I say that categorically and in that sense I have acted responsibly and professionally, safeguarding the integrity and institutional security,” he added.
Likewise, he denied “obtaining this secret information for others, under some economic offer, nor have I enriched myself illicitly during my performance in the institution or even less during my work in the Electronic Warfare platoon”. “I led a normal life,” he said.
And in the face of suspicions that the information could have reached foreign hands, he denied having bank accounts outside the country, and regarding his trips to Tacna -very common among the Chilean military-, as well as to Mexico and the U.S., he maintained that they correspond to family vacations and work, respectively.
However, Arancibia stated: “I am not a spy, nor have I stolen information with which I have profited or benefited third parties outside the institution; I only had the information -as I have made clear all this time- as part of improving my work and performance in each of my activities as an advisor in the telecommunications area”.
IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO AFFIRM OR RULE OUT
Despite his explanations, the Army could not affirm with certainty that Arancibia’s statements were true throughout the judicial process.
Moreover, they leave the door open to the possibility that the information could have reached foreign hands.
A DINE official letter, dated August 5, 2016, states: “The secret information (…) was exposed to the internet, which means that it could have been obtained by third parties, among which may be the intelligence systems of adversary powers, which cannot be affirmed or ruled out”.
As requested by BioBioChile’s Investigation Unit from the Army tersely detailed that “Maximiliano Arancibia is not part of the Institution since 2018”.
“Referring to the other background information requested, and because the judicial process is still ongoing, it is not up to the Institution to refer to the details that may be the subject of an investigation or future proceedings,” they added.
And they sentenced: “Finally, it should be pointed out that the project in question was developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under the Ministry of National Defense, and the corresponding capabilities for the Army are in use”.
“INNOCENT”
Maximiliano Arancibia was sentenced to four years imprisonment as the perpetrator of the crime described and punished in Article 256 of the Code of Military Justice.
That is, concerning those who had unofficially obtained the plans, maps, documents, or writings in reference or who had taken knowledge of them in the same way.
The punishment, however, was substituted by intensive probation. However, the military officer appealed to the Supreme Court in 2019. In a cassation appeal, Arancibia’s defense, led by lawyer Arturo Yuseff Durán, insisted on his innocence.
In the brief, they alleged that all the background information was obtained by his work, “given that he had to transcribe and upload them for other computers and present them in coordination meetings.”
“All the investigation was negative to establish any illegitimate conduct,” they added.
When asked by BBCL, Yuseff said that Arancibia “has been persecuted” by his superiors since he was given full responsibility for the project when he was only 25.
“It is not possible that a program of this nature, which is to protect the interests of the country, is given to such a young person without the experience to solve security problems,” he said.
In this line, he insisted that “there was no corruption, there was no crime, but an obsession that someone had to be ‘liquidated'”. For this reason, he asserted that “the military intelligence services do not provide sufficient guarantees”.
“There are no real criminal elements (against Arancibia). I am certain of his innocence,” he concluded.
After three years, the case is currently petrified in the country’s highest court.
With information from BBCL