Ears and Eyes

A camera was found in front of the house of some anarchists. It was placed inside a black box, on the roof of a restaurant located in front of the house.

A camera was found in a minibus parked near the venue of an event organized by a left-wing political organization. It was installed in the back of the vehicle, on a shelf, in a plastic crate, one side of which had been replaced by tinted glass. The minibus was disguised as a craftsman's vehicle, with work equipment clearly visible, tools and empty coffee cups on the passenger seat.

Two cameras were found in a car parked on a street. They were installed on the rear parcel shelf, in a basket and a bag respectively. A set of cables, hidden under towels, led to the trunk of the vehicle. The camera lenses were aimed at a building entrance and a sidewalk.

A camera was found in a residential building close to a social center, in a small locked room on the 12th floor, overlooking the center's main entrance through a window. The camera was mounted on a tripod and powered by a socket in another locked room, through a cable laid outside across the roof. The residential building was located about 260 meters from the social center.

Several cameras were found in the attic of a public school located in front of a recently evicted squat, overlooking the squat through the skylights.

Three surveillance cameras were found in a building, pointing towards the entrance of a wagenplatz (a leftist political community where people live in trailers). They were located in a locked room, on the sixth floor of a building close to the wagenplatz — the building in question was vacant, except for the first floor which was occupied by a leftist cultural project. One of the cameras was a “Sony ISO 409600 Extreme Sensitivety 4K” with a high-grade “Sony SEL 600mm F4 GM OSS E-mount” telephoto lens. The two other cameras were IP cameras of model “Panasonic WV-S6131”.

All three cameras were connected to a “G-ST 500+/8R Gscope055” video management device marketed by german company Geutebrück, which was equipped with a Telekom SIM card and a 2 TB SSD. The SSD contained video files dated from November and December 2022 in the GBF (Geutebrück Backup File) format, which can only be opened with the company's proprietary software. There were three files per day, each of which could be assigned to a camera. The file sizes indicated long-term and continuous video surveillance.

Another drive located in the room (of model “Samsung Portable SSD T5”) contained additional GBF video files dated from September and October 2022, as well as two images taken by the IP cameras dated from August 2022 and showing the entrance of the wagenplatz, people and vehicles.

The whole installation was powered from a wall socket using an “Antrax SwitchBox-GSM” device which contained another Telekom SIM card, allowing the installation to be powered on and off through the mobile phone network. The IP cameras were powered by the video management device through Ethernet (using a “Delock Gigabit PoE+ Splitter” device).

A camera and a microphone were found on a bike in Bavaria, Germany. They were hidden under the bike seat, inside a container resembling a tool kit. The device consisted of a main unit (~ 12 x 12 x 0.5 cm) connected to a camera (max 1 x 1 x 1 cm), a microphone, a battery (25 x 5 x 4 cm, Li-ion, 3.7 V, 60 Wh, 16.0 Ah), a modem (EM7565 Sierra Wireless), a SIM card (Telekom), a GSM antenna and a 4G antenna (Antenova SR4L002). The camera pointed outwards through a very small hole, directed at the entrance of the home under surveillance — it was impossible to identify it with the naked eye. A few minutes after the surveillance device was spotted and removed, the suspected spies came to retrieve their bike.

Two cameras were found in the streets, near self-managed political places. Each camera was in a box attached to an electric pole. They were able to film the entrances and surroundings of the places. They were present — possibly on and off — since 2019. After the discovery of the first camera, the second one was removed by the State intelligence services.

A surveillance camera was found at the entrance of the village, pointed towards the home of an environmental activist. The camera, barely emerging from the ground, was covered with brambles and grass. It was connected to a Pepwave router and to two cases containing high-tech lithium batteries labeled Accuwatt, hidden in a ditch, under a tarp and a camouflage net.

High-technology batteries found alongside the cameras were marketed by the company Accuwatt, specialized in batteries for armies and law enforcement agencies.

Three surveillance cameras were found overlooking a popular inn. They were buried in a hill at a certain distance from the inn. They included a transmitter and a battery pack.

Four cameras were found near the “ZAD du Carnet”, a place of struggle against the creation of an industrial area, in Loire-Atlantique, in the west of France. The four cameras, hidden near an access gate to the area, were camouflaged in a fake tree log and fake stones. They filmed continuously and were connected, via buried cables, to large batteries and modems, also concealed, allowing images to be sent directly to a remote station. The mention “Allwan” was visible on some of the images found, as well as on a label on a camera. The cameras were found on August 31, and appeared to have been installed right before a “weekend of resistance” organized there on August 29 and 30.

The mention “Allwan”, visible on images found on the devices, as well as on a label on a camera, suggests that the devices were supplied by the French company Allwan Security.

A surveillance device capable of recording images and sound was found during a gathering in front of a jail. The device was located behind a few stones, in a wall along a path, wrapped up in a black garbage bag, next to the place where this kind of gatherings usually happened. It contained a battery, a SD card, a microphone, and a camera hidden behind a rock where a hole had been made. It seemed that the device couldn't send the data, which was stored on the SD card. An analysis of the content of the SD card showed that the device was activated the 3rd of June and installed on the afternoon of the 7th, the day before the gathering.

The pictures of the device show that a digital video recorder of model DK-PV500E, marketed by the italian company DSE (Digital Surveillance Equipment), was part of the device. This suggests that the device was supplied by the italian company DSE.

Six microphones and a camera were found in a house. The microphones were located in power outlets and switch cases, one above the intercom in the corridor, two other in the living-room, and the three last ones in private bedrooms. The camera was located inside the intercom in the corridor and connected to the microphone above it. Each microphone was equipped with a battery, and, except for the one in the corridor, with a SIM card and a memory card. The camera lens could observe through a small hole already present in the intercom structure and slightly worked on to fit the device.

Three outdoor surveillance cameras were found outside, at an event organized in support of a struggle against a project of nuclear waste burying center. The cameras were all located along a 250m pathway leading to the event place. Two cameras of model BOLYGUARD MG983G were found laying in the grass and in a bush, 80cm above ground and were covered by a kind of camouflage hairnet. The third camera, of model RECONYX HYPERFIRE SM750, was found on a tree trunk, 1m20 above ground and had a khaki color. The contents of the SD memory cards revealed several things: the devices were placed on the same day very early in the morning (between 3h30 and 4h); the three devices were capable of night vision, two of them were configured to take pictures and one to record video and sound; their placements allowed them to take pictures of the front and back license plates of cars driving on the pathway, and also of people following the pathway by foot; one of the cameras was useless because of leaves in its field of vision.

According to the source that reported the discovery of the cameras, the cameras that were found were marketed by the companies RECONYX and Boly, based in the United States.

Several surveillance devices were installed from 2015 to April 2018 in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to surveil Julian Assange, founder of the news organization Wikileaks, which had taken refuge in the embassy since 2012. During this period of time:

• The interior cameras were replaced with higher resolution cameras equipped with hidden microphones.
• Microphones were hidden inside a fire extinguisher and above the storage cabinet in the bathroom used by Assange.
• Special stickers were attached on the exterior windows of the embassy to facilitate the use of a laser microphone (able to capture audio by detecting the sound vibrations of the windows) from a building nearby.
• A device capable of transmitting in real-time the information collected by the other devices was installed.

The microphone inside the fire extinguisher was equipped with an SD card and a battery which was changed every twelve hours, while the microphone in the bathroom was connected to the electrical system of the building. The devices were installed by the Spanish company Undercover Global, officially in charge of the security at the embassy. Their installation appeared to have been ordered by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

A micro-camera was found inside a house. The device was placed in the kitchen/dining room, inside a wall, covered up by mortar, revealing only the hold for the camera's lens.

A surveillance device was found in the “Plaisir d'enfance” Montessori school just in front of the anarchist library La Discordia, in a storage room on the first floor overlooking a window in front of the library. The device took the form of a “cardboard folder”. The device was in a rectangular casing about 40x25x25 cm in hard plastic, loud (because of fans), and plugged into the power supply (without batteries). The casing had a hole of about 4 cm in diameter for the camera, with three cables coming out at the end, two of which were tipped antennae (probably sound sensors) and a third a small square sensor. Inside the box advanced technological equipment was found: a wireless router with two SIM cards (from the “Bouygues” mobile operator), a GPS module, three cell inputs, one stereo input ; a processor ; a telephone device with an Orange SIM card; a camera with two zoom levels, remote controlled; and other types of materials that could not be identified. The device was in place at least since the second week of July 2015.

Three microphones coming with cameras were found in the alleys around a squat. The devices were pointing to the different entries of the house.

The pictures of the devices show that the cameras found were marketed by the italian company Elkron, which became a subsidiary of the italian company Urmet in 2012. This suggests that the cameras were supplied by the italian company Elkron.

A video surveillance device was found in the Plagwitz district of Leipzig. It was located on the second floor of a vacant house. It contained cameras mounted on tripods, which filmed the public space through windows.

A video surveillance device was found in the Connewitz district of Leipzig. It was located on the second floor of a vacant house. It contained a swiveling camera which was connected to a hard disk recorder and could be controlled via an LTE mobile phone connection, and a battery to power the device. Through a window, the camera had a view of the sidewalk, several building entrances and several apartment windows. The device could not be seen from the outside as luminous diodes had been specially masked off.

Two cameras were found in front of the Asilo Occupato. The devices were concealed in a fake Enel (Italian electricity supplier) electric box attached on the first floor of a building.

The logo of the italian company Gruppo TRS, which was bought in 2012 by the italian company Atet, is visible on the pictures of the devices. This suggests that these devices were supplied by the italian company Atet.

A police surveillance camera was found in a hospital, pointed towards the Kasa de la Muntanya squat.

Four microphones and a camera were found in a house. A microphone was placed behind the fridge, another in the bedroom, another in a beam next to the ceiling light, another in the house entry. A graceful little camera filmed the entry stairs. All were connected through a transformer to the house electrical network.

A camera was found hidden in an air-conditioner inside a school. The camera served to control the entrance of the house of some anarchist comrades under investigation, and had been placed there by plain clothes officers a few weeks before the comrades' house was searched.

A camera was found at two anarchists' houses. The device was placed in the kitchen, behind a small air vent. It consisted in a camera, linked to a rather large battery made of 3 tubes of 4 batteries of 14.4 volts. The battery was behind the sink. Between the battery and the rest of the device was what seemed to be a switch, that could be manipulated remotely. The camera was connected to a small black box that served as an encoder. This encoder, type “Micro View Lock” (Ovations Systems), was in turn connected to what may have been an antenna to transmit images on 1.4 GHz. There was no SIM card. The camera was pointed towards the kitchen table. It was not known if it also contained a microphone. The camera was secured with magnetic elements. On almost all elements “CS” stickers were affixed. “CS” indeed matched the code of the Logistics Department of the Federal Police.

Microphones and cameras were found in the 400colpi space. A first device was placed in an electrical case, strangely too hot. It consisted, along with a microphone, of a surveillance micro-camera. A second device was placed in an industrial outlet.

Microphones and a micro-camera were found in multiple homes. The devices were found in an amplifier, in the kitchen hood and in a cathode-ray television. The devices had microphones and 300 MHz transmitters with 200-300 meters range. In one case, the device could be activated by remote control (at a distance of hundreds of meters) and in another case it came with a micro-camera linked to a UHF band transmitter of the same range.