In Austria, an ex-constitutional agent is said to have accessed and sold sensitive data. He apparently also had connections to ex-Wirecard board member Marsalek, who is being investigated in Great Britain for spying for Russia.
Vienna is considered a stronghold of spies. Secret service activities are only prohibited in Austria if they are directed against the country itself. That seems to be the case in the current case involving Egisto O.: The man now arrested worked for a long time at BVT, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism, which has now been dissolved.
O. has been under investigation since 2017 on the basis of several suspected cases. Paul Schliefsteiner, head of the Austrian Center for Intelligence and Security Studies, explains that O. apparently built a network and traded information and data. Namely, “initially from his position in the BVT, as it looks like. And what’s really exciting is that he left the BVT in 2017. And he seems to have managed to continue this activity himself as well as through his network “to be able to continue,” says Schliefsteiner.
Cell phone data of high-ranking officials allegedly sold on
Egisto O. is said to have sold the cell phone data of three high officials in the Interior Ministry to Russia in 2022. According to the media, the copies were made after the men capsized a canoe during a company outing, along with their cell phones. They then had to be repaired and the data was said to have been copied.
The sale of the data is said to be the reason for Egisto O.’s current arrest. The information about this is said to have come from Great Britain. Jan Marsalek, the fugitive Wirecard board member, is being investigated there. He is said to have commanded a network of Bulgarian agents who, among other things, spied for Russia in Great Britain.
Egisto O. is also said to have connections to Marsalek and to have provided him with information. The accused last commented on the various allegations against him in a television interview in 2021 – and dismissed everything: “Complete nonsense. So I have never passed on any official data to anyone or let alone taken any money or anything for it.”
Information from EU members targeted
The Egisto O. case once again raises the question of how deep the Russian networks reached or extend into Austria’s domestic politics and security circles. Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer has therefore convened the National Security Council, the government’s central advisory body on security issues.
But historian and Russia expert Wolfgang Müller from the University of Vienna sees a dimension that goes far beyond Austria’s national security. “As an EU member, Austria of course also has insight and a say in many multilateral EU matters. And that is of course much more relevant than Austria alone.”
Russia, Müller believes, is not just about extracting information – but also about infiltrating it. So about propaganda.
Silke Hahne, ARD Vienna, tagesschau, April 1st, 2024 2:25 p.m