Gifts Russia gave G20 leaders ‘bugged’

The Kremlin gave gifts to heads of state at a G20 meeting in St Petersburg that were actually bugging devices, it has been reported.

Italian media said that leaders of the world’s most powerful nations, including Barack Obama, were given welcome packs last month that included USB flash- drives and universal mobile phone battery chargers — which were actually spying devices which allowed sensitive documents stored on laptops to be accessed.

The devices were “a poisoned gift” from Vladimir Putin, claimed La Stampa, the Turin-based daily. “They were Trojan horses designed to obtain information from computers and cell phones,” the paper said.