Dan Zorella
| Dan Zorella | |
|---|---|
| Image | |
| Born | July 1983 |
| Died | |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Residence | |
| Occupation | Private intelligence executive |
| Known for | Co-founder and operations head of Black Cube; Romania conviction, 2022 |
| Parents | |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | |
| Sibling(s) | |
| Education | |
| Predecessor | |
| Website | |
Dan Zorella (דן זורלא; Companies House date of birth July 1983) is the co-founder of Black Cube and the head of its intelligence operations. He is an Israeli former military-intelligence officer. He is not a director of the British companies. He is a person with significant control of B.C. Strategy UK Ltd. In 2022 a Romanian court convicted him, in absentia, over a 2016 operation against Laura Codruța Kövesi, and he had already told Israeli investigators that he ordered the hack of her email.[1][2][3]
The firm
He founded the firm in 2010 with Avi Yanus. Both are described as former Israeli intelligence officers. Zorella’s service was military intelligence. Yanus was a strategic-planning officer. They met as economics undergraduates at the Technion. A 2024 account puts Zorella in charge of intelligence operations and Yanus in charge of the financial and legal side, and of the London office. The same account puts the staff at about 150, with 30 to 40 field agents, the oldest a Mossad veteran in his seventies. Meir Dagan was honorary president until his death in 2016. Efraim Halevy has sat on the advisory board.[3][4]
The British filing
He is not an officer of B.C. Strategy UK Ltd. The persons-with-significant-control record, notified on 6 April 2016, gives him more than 50 but less than 75 per cent of the shares and votes, as a member of a firm. Nationality Israeli. Date of birth July 1983. Address Floor 26, 23 Yehudah Halevi, Tel Aviv. The 75 per cent holder is B.C. Strategy Ltd of the same street. Yanus is notified for significant influence or control, and is the only director.[1]
Romania
In March 2022 a Bucharest court gave him, Yanus and the employee Gal Farchi suspended sentences of two years and eleven months. They were not in Romania. The verdict followed a plea. The charge was creating an organised crime group that in 2016 targeted Kövesi while she headed the DNA anti-corruption agency. Two operatives were arrested in Bucharest before the job was finished. Zorella told Israeli investigators, who were cooperating with the Romanian inquiry, that he had instructed the pair to hack her email in the hope of finding compromising material. They were detained before they could. The firm later said it had thought it was acting for the Romanian intelligence service. The sentence is suspended. The instruction is his.[2][3]
The other contracts attached to the firm, Weinstein in 2016, Beny Steinmetz, and the 2021 Playtech retainer against Evolution, are on the Black Cube and Avi Yanus pages. The deposition in the Playtech case is Yanus’s. The operations seat is Zorella’s.
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Persons with significant control, B.C. Strategy UK Ltd, Companies House.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 3 Israelis from Black Cube intel firm given suspended sentence in Romania, Times of Israel, 21 March 2022.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Inside the shadowy world of the ‘private Mossad’, Daily Telegraph, 21 March 2024.
- ↑ Black Cube, Powerbase.