Tip-off for journalist Jason Katsoukis led to espionage trail of Australian-Israeli spies, false passports and Zygier interview.
"The story was that Mossad was recruiting Australians to spy for them using a front company in Europe. It all seemed too good to be true.
"There was other stuff about Zygier. In Australia you can change your name once a year. He'd done it four times I think, but they were beginning to get suspicious. I also found out that he had applied for a work visa for Italy in Melbourne."
The repeated changes of name would have allowed Zygier to create new identities and multiple passports.
While Katsoukis was working on the story – still uncertain if it stacked up – something happened that encouraged both his editors and Katsoukis himself to bring forward their contact with Zygier.
In January 2010, a Mossad hit squad murdered the Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai.
It emerged that the team had been supplied with false passports from a number of countries including Germany, Ireland and the UK, apparently confirming the very practice Katsoukis was investigating.
"The feeling was that we should go to Zygier and put the story to him. It wasn't difficult to find him. He'd was back in Jerusalem so I called him at home.
"When I spoke to him he was incredulous at first and said **** off – but what was interesting was that he did not hang up. He did soundly genuinely shocked. But he listened to what I had to say.
Fairfax published the story of the three Australian citizens who had allegedly been spying for Israel, but withheld the details about the existence of the front company.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/13/mossad-australian-spies-fairfax-katsoukis