Austria is facing its biggest spy scandal in decades as the arrest of a former intelligence officer exposes evidence of extensive Russian infiltration, lax official oversight and behavior worthy of a spy novel, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Egisto Ot was arrested on March 29. The 86-page arrest warrant, obtained by the AP, alleges, among other things, that he provided Russian intelligence with the cellphone data of former high-ranking Austrian officials, helped plan a break-in at the apartment of a prominent journalist and wrote "suggestions for improvement" after the murder. which were ordered by the Russians in Germany.
Ott is suspected of passing sensitive information to Jan Marsalek, an Austrian fugitive wanted on suspicion of fraud following the 2020 collapse of German financial services company Wirecard, where he was chief operating officer.
The warrant states that messages provided by British authorities directly link Marsalek to Russia's FSB intelligence agency.
German and Austrian media have reported that Marsalek is believed to have been linked to Russian intelligence since at least 2014. He is now believed to be in Russia.
Thomas Rigler, a historian and espionage expert with the Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies, said the case had "the potential for one of the biggest espionage stories in recent Austrian history".
"The case is special considering its international dimension and the fact that it is not only about espionage but also about infiltration into the Austrian political system and the weakening of the country's internal security," he said.
Austria, which during the Cold War was located next to the Iron Curtain and had long had good relations with Moscow, is a member of the European Union with a policy of military neutrality, but also a long-standing reputation as a spy center, according to AP.
Untangling the spider's web
Ott, a former police officer, was an intelligence officer in Turkey and Italy from 2001 to 2012 before moving on to manage undercover agents at Austria's now-defunct domestic intelligence agency BVT.
He was suspended from the BVT in 2017 when allegations first surfaced that he might be spying for Russia, but was transferred the following year to work for the Austrian police academy.
In 2021, Ot was suspended during an investigation into his alleged ties to Russia and sent to detention. Authorities decided the evidence was weak and released him about four weeks later.
Ott served in the BVT under Martin Weiss, the former head of Austrian intelligence operations. Prosecutors said Ott and Weiss were "close friends." The arrest warrant states that Weiss began working for Marsalek and "Wirecard" after leaving the intelligence agency in 2018, and that he relayed orders from Marsalek and Russian operatives to Otto. According to the arrest warrant, Marsalek said in a text message that he helped "evacuate" Weiss to Dubai.
Otto's attorney declined to comment, saying he had only recently taken over Otto's defense. Ott has previously denied allegations of espionage and any wrongdoing.
Marsalek, 44, appears to be “the spider in the web pulling the strings,” Rigler said. Marsalek's attorney did not respond to an AP request for comment.
Dissidents, spies and databases
Between 2017 and 2021, the Austrian arrest warrant states, Ot collected sensitive information about persons of interest to Russia "for the purpose of passing it on to Jan Marsalek and unknown representatives of the Russian authorities" by conducting numerous searches of national police databases and making requests to others European police forces, including Italy and Britain.
Ot also reportedly sought data from the Schengen Information System to determine whether suspected Russian operatives and former Wirecard employees were wanted or covered by travel restrictions.
The warrant contains a long list of people who were spied on, including Russian dissidents, businessmen and a former officer who left the FSB, the AP reported.
Burglary, smashed phones and lessons learned
While the accusation that Ot sought information for Russia first surfaced in 2017, the British intelligence service recently provided Austria with significant new information, the US agency writes.
Five Bulgarian nationals who allegedly worked in a network with Marsalek were arrested in Britain last year, and another in February. According to Otto's arrest warrant, messages between Marsalek and one of the suspects in the case, Orlin Rusev, seized by the British intelligence agency MI5, point to further operations by Marsalek and his Austrian aides.
According to prosecutors, just five weeks after he was released from custody in 2021, Ot asked for the address of Bulgarian investigative journalist Hrist Grozev in Vienna and gave it to Marsalek. They say that Marsalek later hired a team to break into Grozev's apartment and steal a laptop and a USB memory stick.
Grozev, who tracked down Russian officers allegedly involved in the 2018 poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and the 2020 poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, moved from Vienna last year after Austrian authorities told him they could no longer guarantee his safety .
Ot also allegedly obtained the mobile phones of three former high-ranking officials of the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, including the former minister's chief of staff, when they were supposed to be repaired by BVT IT experts after they fell into the water during a boat trip on the Danube in 2017.
Prosecutors say the phones were given to an unknown agent who worked for Marsalek in the Vienna apartment of Otto's former brother-in-law and "transferred to Moscow for further analysis." They say the phones contained "sensitive official and private data".
Ott also allegedly helped Marsalek smuggle a stolen SINA computer, a device used by many European governments to transmit classified information, to Moscow. After the handover in the same apartment in Vienna, Marsalek wrote in a message that the device was successfully transferred to Lubyanka - where the FSB is headquartered in Moscow, according to prosecutors.
Investigators also found a lessons-learned analysis on Otto's cellphone that contained "suggestions for improving" Russian intelligence operations in Europe following the 2019 killing of a Chechen Georgian citizen in Berlin. In that case, a Russian was also caught, and the German judges said that he acted on the orders of the Russian authorities.
What is Austria doing?
AP writes that Ot remains in custody pending a decision on whether he will be formally charged, and that the process is likely to take some time.
However, the case has been widely reported in the media, with various political parties accusing each other of failing to stop Oto earlier.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehamer called a meeting of the National Security Council for today and said that the country must strengthen its security to prevent Russian infiltration.
His justice minister said she plans to tighten the country's espionage laws, which are currently expressly prohibited if directed against Austria itself, but not if directed against other countries or the many international organizations Vienna hosts.
Bonus video:
