Spy agency hires PIs to do its snooping

IT MIGHT be an organisation dedicated to snooping – but the nation’s spy agency has still forked out $50,000 to hire private investigators.

Details released under the Official Information Act show that during the past three years the Government Communications Security Bureau has paid contractors to investigate two matters.

Director Ian Fletcher said they were ‘‘personnel-related issues’’.

The investigations ran concurrently and lasted five months, costing $46,009.

Mr Fletcher declined to give further details – and would not reveal the outcome of the investigations ‘‘in order to protect the privacy of the persons involved’’.

However, he said the inquiries did not relate to last year’s Kitteridge report, which revealed the bureau had illegally spied on more than 80 Kiwis for more than a decade.

Disclosing the identity of contractors used by intelligence agencies ‘‘would likely put them at risk of being targets of foreign intelligence agencies’’.

A spokesman later said: ‘‘The reason we engaged external investigators is because the bureau doesn’t employ permanent investigators.’’

Labour’s associate intelligence spokesman Grant Robertson said it was another example of ‘‘gross incompetence’’ by the bureau.

‘‘Things have got so bad for GCSB that they have to hire spies to spy on spies.’’

The Corrections Department engaged Corporate Risk Ltd to investigate a staff member in April and May 2012. No action was taken against the staff member.

In the 2012-13 financial year, Inland Revenue engaged external contractors/consultants 387 times, but did not say how much it spent.

The Serious Fraud Office spent $1.1 million on outside investigators in the past three years to help with investigations.

The biggest winner was Omega Investigations, which pocketed just over $235,000.