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The Israeli Fighter Pilots

Who Got Rich Off Angola's
Civil War and Their Link
to a Massive Cyberattack
Three Israeli ex-fighter pilots operating in Africa have a
surprising tie to a sophisticated attack that caused a global
scare
Gur Megiddo | Send me email alerts

Jan 01, 2019 1:54 AM

1048 Tweet Zen Subscribe

Ami Lustig, right, and Roee Ben-Yami, the owners of LR Group that partly controlled Cellcom
Liberia. Credit: Angela Pham / BFA / REX / Shutte, Screenshot from Youtube channel of EMRC Africa

An international criminal probe has been investigating for the past

two years suspicions that a company named Cellcom Liberia (and
which has nothing to do with the Israeli mobile carrier of a similar-
sounding name) ordered an Israeli-British hacker it hired in Angola
to wage continuous cyberattacks against a competitor called
Lonestar.

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The attacks, whose goal was to put Lonestar out of business, spun
out of control so much so that by November 2016 the Liberian
government believed the state was actually being targeted by these
assaults.

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As Markerweek reported last week, hacker Daniel Kaye testified in
his investigation — which took place in Germany — that the
operation he carried out was ordered by the CEO of Cellcom Liberia,
Avishai Marciano.

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>> These Israelis want to do business in Africa. Can they

succeed without bribes?

One of the controlling shareholders of Cellcom Liberia since its

establishment in 2004 until mid-2016 was a secret business empire
named LR Group. It was founded by three Israeli former fighter
pilots, who monetized on business opportunities that arose out of
Angola's 27-year-long civil war, which ended in 2002. After one of
the founders, Eitan Stiva, left in 2011 to set up an independent
investment fund, the company remained in the hands of the other
two founders: Ami Lustig and Roee Ben-Yami.

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In 2016, Cellcom Liberia was sold to the international network

Orange and changed its name to Orange Liberia the following year.
Marciano, the CEO suspected to be linked to the cyberattacks,
stepped down.

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The hacker

In 2016, Daniel Kaye, an Israel-U.K. dual citizen who was raised in

Israel, was 28 years old. The hacker was skilled enough to take over
 routers of telecom giants or put out of order the websites of British
banks. Still, according to his testimony, he was short on cash. Kaye
lived in London at the time and had planned to propose to his
girlfriend, who was living in Cyprus.

The cyberattack for which he was arrested had garnered him several
thousands of dollars.

Sim cards by MTN, one of the biggest cellular companies in Africa. Credit: George Osodi
/Bloomberg

Sometime in February 2017, Kaye landed in London's Luton

Airport, where he was arrested. Later he was extradited by British
authorities to Germany, which ordered an international arrest
warrant and asked that he be extradited because he made use of
hundreds of thousands of routers belonging to German telecom
giant Deutche Telecom during the attack. In May of that year, while
under interrogation by federal police in Germany, he admitted to
the acts that were attributed to him and explained to his
interrogators what led to the attack.

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Kaye used a malware which carries out DDoS attacks (Distributed

Denial of Service). Behind this acronym is a fairly simple method:
The malware locates devices with internet connection that can be
infiltrated and taken over from afar, and uses them to load traffic
onto servers that it attacks until it makes them crash.

The German interrogators quickly understood that the telecom

giant was just a means for the hacker in this case. "Deutche Telecom
was never the target. I was looking for devices that were exposed for
infiltration all over the world," Kaye told them. "And I happened to
use Deutche Telecom routers."

At the height of the cyberattack, in 2016, it was widely covered

across the world. An attack on such a scale happens from time to
time, but most such attacks take place in cyber world powers such
as China, the United States, Russia or Israel. Liberia, in comparison,
is a west African, poverty-stricken country with a low life
expectancy. It's not a country you would expect to see prepared for
modern cyber threats.

"I didn't want to attack Liberia," Kaye explained to his interrogators.

"I wanted to take down a cellular network in Liberia named
Lonestar Cell (of the MTN group), one of the most popular cellular
brands in Africa."

When the interrogators asked Kaye why he set out to attack

Lonestar, Kaye said: "I, personally, don't have anything against this
company" but that a competing company had hired him for the
mission.

While it remains unclear from protocols of the hacker's

investigation how long the attacks actually took place, it is believed
they lasted at least several months. A source close to Lonestar says
the assault went on from the end of 2015 until February 2017.

The question of the attacks' duration is critical, because they are

suspected to have taken place around the same period when the
company moved to the hands of Orange. That sale was announced
in April 2016, and it is known that the attack lasted into the
following year while the company was run by a different Israeli CEO
that LR appointed; the new director-general also resigned several
months after the attack ended.

A rich, anonymous trio

The three Israelis started LR in the 1980s. They knew each other
from Israel Air Force's flight academy, where they trained together
to become pilots.
 Similarly to other resource-rich African nations that have oil, gold,
diamonds or particularly fertile soil, Angola is a paradox of a
country full of natural wealth that actually makes its citizens poorer
largely due to the involvement of foreigners in its local conflicts and
corrupt government.

A child standing by a building that was hit by multiple bullets during the civil war in
Angola. Credit: Ami Cohen /AP

LR got involved in defense exports in Angola in the mid-80s and

spent years massively arming the government there and training its
troops. According to a variety of reports, the company sold Sukhoi
27 combat planes, artillery shells, and light weapons to the
government. At the same time, the three founders also built airports
and security systems and were involved in purchasing a plane for
Jose Eduardo dos Santos, the president who ruled in Angola for 38
years through 2017. Some attribute his victory in the war to the
country’s aerial armament, which LR greatly contributed to.

In the 2000s, after the war ended, the ex-pilots sought to break into
civilian fields. They entered into infrastructure, technology and
agriculture projects; first in Angola and then in other countries.
They led ambitious projects to set up dozens of agricultural
communities in Angola and Congo, modeling them after the Israeli
moshav. Later they set up farms, barns, water purification plans and
other agricultural projects in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, and
most recently, Chad. They also supported philanthropic work such
as orphanages and agricultural boarding schools in Angola —
projects which they didn’t fail to share with Israeli media.

The three also dabbled in the medical field, setting up clinics in

Angola and a hospital in Ukraine at an investment of tens of
millions of shekels. Recently they joined a deal to train a medical
team in China.
 “This trio seem to be among the richest people in Israel, but because
their business is private, people don't know them,” a source familiar
with them said.

How wealthy are they? “Every one of them has a billion, maybe
more,” the source added.

Throughout the years LR has had cellular companies in countries

such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. The cellular network was
operated by Ben-Yami and Lustig since Stiva’s retirement in 2011.
The company website says it employs some 2,000 people
worldwide.

LR Group issued the following statement in response to this report:

“We were surprised to hear about the case that took place in the
period after the sale of Cellcom Liberia and deny anything to do
with this case if it indeed took place. We thoroughly condemn any
aggressive behavior on the web and have always taken strict care
that company directors and employees belonging to the group
operate only within the confines of local and international
regulatory law.”

Gur Megiddo
Haaretz
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