Wednesday, April 09, 2008

di leo da liar

Kickass anti-aviation activists Plane Stupid uncovered an infiltrator at their meetings. Having fed him false information and watched airport security personnel respond and the Evening Standard report it, they knew he was a mole.

They found his true identity - Toby Kendall, favourite film Top Gun - and his employer, a company called C2i International. They are a firm who specialise in, among other things, industrial counter-espionage, and work for the aerospace industry.

According to today's Guardian, airport operator BAA has been approached by C2i.

However, now that the incompetent spy - described by Plane Stupid as 'more Austin Powers than James Bond' - has had his cover blown, nobody will claim him, not even his (probably now ex-) employer.

C2i has also stated Kendall was operating on his own and his infiltration of Plane Stupid was not sanctioned.


Yeah right, he was just doing it for a laugh, solo work for the hell of it, nobody paying him.

The Guardian's list of arms-lengthers quotes Michelle Di Leo, director of aviation lobby group Flying Matters, saying infiltrating anti-aviation groups under false names is 'not the sort of thing we would do'.

But as the Independent reported last November, Airport Watch received an email from someone called Bella Ragazza, claiming to live in Italy and asking to be put on its email list.

The name is clearly fake, as it means simply 'beautiful girl' in Italian, the language of Ms Di Leo’s family.

The mystery was easily solved, though. It came from a Hotmail account, and the person had signed up for their MSN Passport under their real name. The 'From' field of the email was "Michelle Di Leo".

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