According to the newspaper, one of the teenagers was recruited through the Telegram messaging app by a pro-Russian hacker. In August, he was spotted near the offices of Europol, Eurojust, and the Canadian Embassy in The Hague carrying a Wi-Fi sniffer, a device that intercepts nearby wireless network data.
Police declined to comment on the details because of the suspects’ age but confirmed that one teenager will remain in custody for two more weeks. The other has been placed under house arrest, fitted with a tracking ankle bracelet.
On Sept. 22, eight masked police officers armed with a search warrant entered the home of the main suspect, the boy’s father told the journalists. They proceeded directly to his son’s room, where he was doing homework, and took him into custody. The father said the officers only mentioned charges of “espionage” and “providing services to a foreign state.”
“My son doesn’t go outside; he works in a supermarket and has no interest in exploring the world,” the father said. Friends and neighbors describe the teenager as a “fanatical gamer” who is skilled with computers and interested in hacking.
The report says the arrests followed intelligence gathered by the AIVD, the Dutch security service.