2024-03-01 16:24:44
The ex-Wirecard boss is said to have spied on Kremlin-critical journalist Christo Grozev in Vienna together with two ex-BVT officials. Even today he might still be spying on behalf of the Russians in Austria.
A cocky manager of a DAX company, an empathetic adrenaline junkie, a spy in the service of Russia: Jan Marsalek, ex-board member of the payment service provider Wirecard, led a double life for years without German and Austrian authorities taking action, according to an investigation by “Standard” , “Spiegel”, ZDF and the Russian investigative platform The Insider. Today it is still likely that the 43-year-old is spying on Austrian authorities, politicians and companies on behalf of the Russians.
Investigators assign Marsalek and two ex-officials from the dissolved Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism (BVT) to an “intelligence cell” that spied on people “in the interests of the Russian Federation,” investigation documents are quoted as saying. The ex-BVT employees are also said to have provided the fuel for the BVT raid under former Interior Minister Herbert Kickl. Both deny the allegations of having sold information from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. According to “Der Spiegel,” agents who worked closely with Marsalek also still work in what is now the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence (DSN).
Attack plans once morest journalist Grozev
According to research, one of the targets of Marsalek’s BVT cell was the journalist Christo Grozev. As head of the Bellingcat research platform, he uncovered the machinations of Russian secret services for years. Bellingcat revealed the identities of the spies who poisoned the late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny in 2020.
At the end of 2020, BVT agents researched Grozev’s private address in Vienna and took photos of the house, according to “Der Standard”. Marsalek had already gone abroad at that time. In 2023, Grozev moved to Germany due to specific attack warnings from Western secret services. A trial is currently underway in London once morest a five-member spy ring that was commissioned to track down, kidnap and possibly kill Kremlin critics from Marsalek.
Disguised as a priest
According to the research, Russia’s secret services specifically recruited Marsalek. As the operational director of a company that was involved in global payment transactions and counted international corporations as well as the German Federal Intelligence Service among its customers, he was of the highest interest to Moscow. Russia’s secret services apparently sent Natalja S. out in 2013 as a “honeytrap,” according to “Der Spiegel.” She was supposed to help Marsalek with a deal with the Moscow Metro. The then 29-year-old – erotic model and protagonist in a sex film – is said to have had excellent relations with the Moscow administration. She became his lover.
Marsalek and S. are said to have traveled to Chechnya together to discuss with the family of dictator Ramzan Kadyrov how around $100 million might be smuggled from Hong Kong to the West.
Marsaleks assumed the identity of a priest
According to “Spiegel”, Stanislaw Petlinksi, “an extended arm of the Russian secret services”, was also central to Marsalek’s transformation from businessman to spy. He is said to have “handed over” the Austrian to the GRU military intelligence service in 2014 and is said to have been a frequent guest in Marsalek’s Munich control center – an Art Nouveau villa on Prinzregentenstrasse. In addition, following the Wirecard fraud scandal was exposed in 2020, Petlinski probably gave Marsalek a new identity through an acquaintance: that of a Russian Orthodox priest who, writes “Der Standard”, “looks strikingly similar” to him.
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