The Black Cube Files: How Former Mossad Operatives Flipped a Nation

Inside the Israeli intelligence operation that shook Slovenia.

10 days before a national election, with secretly recorded videos of government officials circulating online and former Israeli intelligence operatives confirmed to have visited opposition party headquarters, Slovenia abruptly reversed its decision to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

The official explanation pointed to national security concerns. Slovenian officials warned that joining could “jeopardize Slovenia’s national security,” citing the uncomfortable reality that many of the country’s cyber defense systems are of Israeli origin. They noted that Israeli authorities play a crucial role in facilitating Slovenian humanitarian operations in Gaza and in evacuating Slovenian nationals from the Middle East.

Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon expressed regret, calling the internal debate “quite emotional and exhausting.” When asked about external pressure, Fajon acknowledged, “It is clear that these pressures exist, we are all subjected to them by superpowers, and ultimately this must be taken into account when deciding.”

What Fajon did not say, but what Slovenian intelligence would confirm days later, was that operatives from Black Cube, a private intelligence firm founded by former Israeli military intelligence officers and advised by former Mossad chiefs, had been operating on Slovenian soil for months. They had visited the headquarters of the opposition party. They had lured government officials into staged meetings using a fictitious British investment fund. They had secretly recorded them.

Almost nobody in the English-speaking world covered it.

In the annals of intelligence operations that never quite make the headlines, few stories rival what unfolded in Slovenia between December 2025 and March 2026. A small European nation of two million people found itself at the center of geopolitical intrigue involving former Israeli military intelligence officers, fictitious investment funds, secretly recorded politicians, and a last-minute reversal that may have saved Slovenia from whatever consequences Israel had in store.

A Relationship Built on Trade and Transformed by War

Israel and Slovenia established diplomatic relations on April 28, 1992, shortly after Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia. For decades the relationship remained cordial if unremarkable, built on a bilateral investment protection agreement signed in 1998 and a double taxation treaty signed in 2007, along with occasional state visits. Israeli President Shimon Peres visited Ljubljana in 2010. Slovenia designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization in November 2020, treating the group in its entirety as a “criminal and terrorist organization posing a threat to peace and security” — notably declining to distinguish between Hezbollah’s military and political wings as most EU countries had done.

The relationship strengthened under conservative Prime Minister Janez Janša, who governed from 2020 to 2022. Janša cultivated close personal ties with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ordered the Israeli flag raised over his party headquarters during a moment of crisis. In December 2020, Janša traveled to Israel and met with representatives of five Israeli companies, including the controversial spyware firm NSO Group, according to Slovenian investigative outlet Oštro. The Slovenian government confirmed the meeting but stated no deals were concluded.

In August 2021, Slovenia’s Government Information Security Office signed a cybersecurity cooperation memorandum with the Israeli National Cyber Directorate. The country purchased Spike missiles from Rafael and received armored vehicle components from Elbit Systems in contracts stretching back to the 1990s.

Then came October 2023 and the war in Gaza.

The Golob Pivot

When center-left Robert Golob unseated Janša in 2022, Slovenia’s posture toward Israel began shifting. After the Gaza war erupted, the transformation became dramatic.

Slovenia became the first European nation to join the ICJ advisory opinion proceedings on Israel’s control of occupied territories in January 2024, submitting written comments while other EU states held back. On June 4, 2024, Slovenia officially recognized the State of Palestine. In July 2025, the country declared Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich persona non grata, becoming the first EU member state to do so. On July 31, 2025, Slovenia announced a comprehensive arms embargo covering import, export, and transit of all weapons to and from Israel, again the first EU member state to take such action.

In September 2025, Slovenia banned Netanyahu himself from entering the country, the first EU nation to do so, citing the ICC arrest warrant. By early 2026, Slovenia was preparing to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ. Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon expressed strong support.

Then everything changed.

The Black Cube Files

Black Cube, officially BC Strategy Ltd, describes itself as “the world’s leading intelligence firm” staffed by “veterans of elite Israeli Intelligence Units.” Founded in 2010 by Dan Zorella, a former IDF Military Intelligence officer, and Dr. Avi Yanus, a former IDF strategic planning officer, the firm operates in over 75 countries and employs more than 100 investigators fluent in 30 languages.

The firm’s advisory board reads like a who’s who of Israeli intelligence. Meir Dagan, the former Mossad chief who ran the agency from 2002 to 2011, served as Black Cube’s honorary president until his death in 2016 and was heavily involved in the firm from its earliest stages. Other advisory board members include Efraim Halevy, another former Mossad head, and Major General Giora Eiland, former head of the Israeli National Security Council.

Black Cube became globally infamous through the Harvey Weinstein scandal. The film producer hired the firm, reportedly on a referral from former Israeli PM Ehud Barak, to suppress sexual harassment allegations. Black Cube agents tracked journalists investigating Weinstein, including Ronan Farrow of The New Yorker and Jodi Kantor of The New York Times. They targeted accusers, particularly Rose McGowan, using an operative who posed as a women’s rights supporter. The explicit contract goal, as Farrow documented in his Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting, was to “completely stop the publication of a new negative article in a leading NY newspaper.”

The firm also saw five employees convicted in Romania — two lower-level operatives arrested in 2016 and three company founders including Zorella and Yanus in 2022 — for targeting the country’s chief anticorruption prosecutor, Laura Codruța Kövesi, through hacking and harassment. Black Cube conducted operations targeting researchers at Citizen Lab who were investigating NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The firm was also hired to find compromising material on architects of the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, including former officials Colin Kahl and Ben Rhodes, according to NBC News.

And then Black Cube turned its attention to Slovenia.

Spies in Ljubljana

Between December 10 and 11, 2025, three Black Cube representatives arrived in Slovenia. According to the Slovenian government and ABC News, the three operatives were Dan Zorella, the firm’s co-founder, Liron Tzur, and Giora Eiland, the former head of Israel’s National Security Council who sits on Black Cube’s advisory board. Flight records and intelligence data confirmed they visited Trstenjakova Street No. 8 in Ljubljana, where Janša’s Slovenian Democratic Party maintains its headquarters.

On December 22, 2025, senior Black Cube figures reportedly met with Janša himself. The opposition leader later admitted to having “contacts with an adviser from the Israeli private intelligence agency Black Cube” but denied doing anything illegal.

Between January and March 2026, Black Cube operatives posing as representatives of a fictitious British investment fund called “Stockard Capital” lured Slovenian political figures into staged business meetings in Vienna and other locations, secretly recording them. Among the targets was former Justice Minister Dominika Švarc Pipan.

Roughly ten days before the election, an anonymous website called anti-corruption2026.com appeared online, publishing edited videos of government figures including officials from Golob’s Freedom Movement party. The content was described by analyst Lily Lynch as “more embarrassing than criminal.”

On March 16, 2026, Slovenian investigative journalist Borut Mekina of Mladina presented findings at a press conference with civil society researchers linking Black Cube to the secretly recorded videos and to Janša’s party. The following day, Prime Minister Golob accused “foreign services” of interfering in the election, calling it “the biggest scandal we have witnessed in Slovenia since independence.”

“Clear-Cut Interference”

On March 22, 2026, Slovenia held its parliamentary elections. Golob’s Freedom Movement party narrowly defeated Janša’s SDS despite the scandal.

French President Emmanuel Macron stated that Golob “was the victim of clear-cut interference” by “third countries” and misinformation, according to Euronews.

On March 26, 2026, SOVA, the Slovenian Intelligence and Security Agency, “unequivocally confirmed the activity of foreign influence” on the elections. Agency chief Joško Kadivnik presented material evidence linking the three Black Cube operatives to the SDS headquarters visit and demonstrating “counterintelligence operations against the Republic of Slovenia and foreign interference in Slovenian elections.”

The evidence was handed to prosecutors and police.

The Dependency Trap

The Slovenia episode illuminates a dynamic rarely discussed in Western capitals. Israeli defense and cybersecurity firms have quietly embedded themselves into the security infrastructure of allied nations, creating dependencies that carry geopolitical weight.

Slovenia procured Elbit Systems weapon stations and turrets for its Patria AMV armored vehicle program in 2007. It purchased Spike anti-tank missiles from Rafael in multiple transactions, including a $6.6 million deal for 50 Spike LR2 missiles in September 2022. It signed a cybersecurity memorandum with Israel’s National Cyber Directorate in 2021.

Yet despite declaring a full arms embargo in July 2025, a Haaretz investigation in August 2025 revealed that Slovenia purchased €828,000 in Israeli military equipment in 2024 and continued planning to acquire Spike missiles through EuroSpike, a joint venture between Rafael and German defense firms Rheinmetall and Diehl that manufactures the missiles in Germany.

Israel’s influence operations demonstrate that a country’s sovereignty is only as secure as its gatekeepers. A truly free nation must ensure that Israeli nationals and their intelligence assets are permanently barred from setting foot on its soil.

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