EPAJan Marsalek on a wanted poster
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 20:51
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Charlotte Waaijers
Germany correspondent
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Charlotte Waaijers
Germany correspondent
More and more details are emerging about a major spy scandal in Austria that is linked to a fraud scandal in Germany. Reports about agents of the Austrian intelligence service who appear to be working for Russia expose a striking web.
Spies at the Austrian service are said to have worked with fugitive former Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek to help Russia hunt for opponents abroad. The Austrian magazine reports about this Falter and the Standard newspaper in collaboration with the German Spiegel and ZDF.
One of the targets is the Bulgarian Christo Grozev, who as a journalist at the research platform Bellingcat was primarily responsible for investigations into Russia. He helped clarify the downing of flight MH17 by a Russian anti-aircraft system in 2014 and revealed which Kremlin agents were behind the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Navalny. It would have made him a prominent target of the Russian government.
In the summer of 2022, burglars entered his rental home in Vienna and took a laptop and several USB sticks. This probably happened on behalf of the Russian internal security service FSB. They possibly came to his address thanks to a network of Austrian contacts.
That network emerged in an investigation into the billion-dollar fraud at the German payment company Wirecard. According to reports, the British secret service listened to communications between former director Marsalek and the FSB, which revealed that it was the Austrian Marsalek who managed the contacts in Austria on behalf of Russia.
Double agent at Wirecard
According to Spiegel, ZDF and Standard, Marsalek has been leading a double life as a Russian spy since 2014. He was helped by a woman who was an erotic model and starred in a horror sex film. This is said to have brought him into contact with the family of the Chechen dictator Kadyrov, high-ranking figures within the Russian intelligence service and the head of the secret service of the Wagner mercenary group.
In that role, Marsalek is said to have given orders to two men who worked for years in the Austrian internal security service: Egisto Ott and Martin Weiss. According to Falter magazine, which last week had exclusive access to the arrest warrant of more than eighty pages, Ott would receive names, photos and fingerprints of targets from Russia in order to track down people. The formula for Novichok, the nerve agent used by Russian agents to commit assassinations on opposition leader Navalny, was also found on his phone.
New secret service
According to the Public Prosecution Service, Ott “misused European databases to collect information in the interests of Russia and thus endangered national security”.
“The exchange of information is based on mutual trust, which has been negatively affected by Ott’s searches in the interest of Russia,” the Public Prosecution Service said. According to the magazine, Austria has even been temporarily excluded from a European cooperation between secret services.
Ott is also said to have worked on plans to set up a new secret service within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At the head of that ministry is Karin Kneissl, the woman who became world news in 2018 when she danced with Russian President Putin at her wedding.
It is remarkable that the two officers were able to do their thing for so long. Ott has already been suspended once and has been detained once. There were also warnings of Russian interference within the security service.
There were already warnings, says an Austrian journalist:
An employee wrote to the leadership in 2016: “The Russian intelligence service has intensified its activities in Austria and Europe to disrupt the European Union on a large scale (see the support for nationalist parties, the instrumentalization of organizations, including in the police sector).” While other countries have expanded their counterintelligence personnel, Austria can hardly handle the basic work, it sounds.
The recipient of the warning at that time was manager Martin Weiss. According to reports, he started working for Russia a few weeks after the email with Ott.
Ott was arrested in Austria last month, but he reportedly denies the charges. Weiss is said to have been ‘evacuated’ by Marsalek to Dubai, which has no extradition treaty with Austria.
Marsalek has been on the run since the Wirecard fraud came to light. He is said to have assumed the identity of a priest in Russia. Former minister Kneissl moved to Russia at the end of last year.
2024-04-13 18:51:35
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