In an interview with CNN on Monday, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that an intelligence unit created to counter Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence agency was itself heavily infiltrated by Mossad and that even the man heading the unit was found to be an Israeli agent.

“Israel organized complex operations inside Iran,” Ahmadinejad told CNN’s Turkish news division. “They could easily obtain information. In Iran, they are still silent about this. The man who was in charge of the unit in Iran against Israel was an Israeli agent.”

Ahmadinejad further stated that around 20 agents in this intelligence unit were discovered to be working for Israeli intelligence.

The former Iranian president has made similar allegations in the past, saying that in 2021, “a massive Israeli operation used a corrupt gang of security personnel in the upper echelons of the national intelligence apparatus,” including the man who headed Iran’s anti-Israel intelligence operations.

Ynet News reported that former Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Younesi has made similar claims in the past without going into detail.

“The Mossad has infiltrated many government departments in the last 10 years, to such a degree that all the country’s top officials should fear for their lives,” Younesi said in 2022.

After Younesi stepped down from his role in 2005, he began repeatedly stating that there had been widespread infiltration of Iranian intelligence agencies by the Mossad since his resignation.

“The leaders of the country don’t show any interest in what’s best for the public and their lives, and the Mossad has succeeded, with enticements of influence and money, to penetrate the regime’s security bodies,” Younesi said in 2021, Israel Hayom reported.