WP: Austrian spy scandal exposes Russian operations across Europe
Kyiv • UNN
A former Austrian intelligence officer is arrested for large-scale Russian infiltration and espionage activities, revealing a lack of oversight and actions worthy of a spy novel.
Austria has faced one of the biggest spy scandals in decades due to the arrest of a former intelligence officer who revealed the facts of extensive Russian infiltration, insufficient control by the official authorities and actions worthy of a spy novel plot. This is reported by WP, UNN reports.
Details
Egisto Ott was detained on March 29. He is accused of, among other things, transferring data from the mobile phones of former high-ranking Austrian officials to Russian special services, conspiring to organize a break-in at the apartment of a well-known journalist and drawing up "suggestions for improvement" after a contract killing in Germany on the instructions of Russian clients.
It is suspected that Ott passed confidential information to Jan Marsalek, also an Austrian citizen, who has been wanted on suspicion of fraud since the collapse of the German company Wirecard in 2020, where he served as CEO. The warrant states that the chat messages provided by the British authorities directly link Marsalek to Russian special services.
German and Austrian media reported that Marsalek has been suspected of having ties to Russian intelligence since at least 2014. He is probably currently in Russia.
Thomas Riegler, a historian and espionage expert at the Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security, believes that the case has "the potential to become one of the biggest espionage stories in recent Austrian history.
This is a special case because of its international scope and because it is not only about espionage, but also about the penetration of the Russian system into Austrian politics and the weakening of the country's internal security
