An espionage scandal rocks Austria, laying bare alleged Russian spying operations across Europe
Vienna: Austria faces its biggest espionage scandal in decades as the arrest of a former intelligence officer brings to light evidence of extensive Russian infiltration, lax official oversight and behaviour worthy of a spy novel.
Egisto Ott was arrested March 29. The 86-page arrest warrant, obtained by The Associated Press, alleges among other things that he handed over cellphone data of former high-ranking Austrian officials to Russian intelligence, helped plot a burglary at a prominent journalist’s apartment, and wrote up “suggestions for improvement” after a Russian-ordered killing in Germany.
Ott is suspected of having provided sensitive information to Jan Marsalek, a fugitive fellow Austrian wanted on suspicion of fraud since the collapse in 2020 of German payment company Wirecard, where he was the chief operating officer. The warrant says chat messages provided by British authorities link Marsalek directly to the Russian intelligence agency FSB. German and Austrian media have reported that Marsalek is believed to have had connections to Russian intelligence since at least 2014. He is now thought to be in Russia.
Thomas Riegler, a historian and espionage expert affiliated with the Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies, said the case has “the potential for one of the biggest espionage stories in recent Austrian history”.
“The case is special given its international dimension and the fact that it is not only about espionage but also about the infiltration of the Austrian political system and the weakening of the country’s internal security,” he said.
Austria, which was located next to the Iron Curtain during the Cold War and long had good connections with Moscow, is a European Union member with a policy of military neutrality — and a longstanding reputation as a spying centre. Ott, a former police officer, was an intelligence officer in Turkiye and Italy from 2001 to 2012 before moving on to manage undercover agents at Austria’s now-defunct domestic intelligence agency, the BVT.
He was suspended from the BVT in 2017 when allegations emerged for the first time that he could be spying for Russia, but reassigned the following year to work for the Austrian police academy. In 2021, he was suspended pending further investigation into his alleged ties to Russia and taken into custody. Authorities concluded the evidence was too thin and released him about four weeks later. At the BVT, Ott served under Martin Weiss, the former chief of Austrian intelligence operations. Prosecutors alleged that Ott and Weiss have a “close friendship”.
In the arrest warrant, they say that Weiss began to work for Marsalek and Wirecard after leaving the intelligence agency in 2018, and that he passed orders from Marsalek and Russian operatives to Ott. According to the arrest warrant, Marsalek said in a text message that he helped “evacuate” Weiss to Dubai.
Ott’s lawyer declined to comment, saying he had only recently taken over Ott’s defense. Ott has previously denied the espionage allegations and any wrongdoing.
Marsalek, 44, appears to be “the spider in the web” who is “pulling the strings”, Riegler said. There was no immediate response to an email seeking comment from Marsalek’s lawyer.
Between 2017 and 2021, the Austrian warrant says, Ott collected sensitive information on people of interest to Russia “for the purpose of transmission to Jan Marsalek and to unknown representatives of Russian authorities” by conducting numerous searches in national police databases and making requests to other European police officers, including in Italy and Britain.
