An employee of the German foreign intelligence service was arrested on Wednesday. The accusation: treason. The BND had known about the alleged traitor for some time.
The employee of the Federal Intelligence Service is said to have passed on a state secret to Russia.
A Russian spy apparently worked for the German foreign intelligence service. This was announced by the federal prosecutor’s office on Thursday. The alleged double agent Carsten L. was arrested by the Federal Criminal Police Office on Wednesday. In addition, police officers searched the apartment and the workplace of the BND employee and another person. Carsten L. is a German citizen. He is suspected of having committed treason.
According to the federal prosecutor’s office, the man transmitted information to a Russian intelligence service this year. This information was apparently extremely valuable: According to the federal prosecutor’s office, the content is a state secret – which Carsten L. apparently passed on to Moscow during Russia’s war of aggression.
The BND already knew
According to the German Criminal Code, state secrets are “facts, objects or knowledge that are only accessible to a limited group of people and must be kept secret from a foreign power in order to avert the risk of serious damage to the external security of the Federal Republic of Germany.” This suggests that Carsten L. is probably a high-ranking BND official.
The suspect was brought before the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice on Thursday. The authorities did not initially publish any further details.
The investigations of the federal prosecutor were conducted in close cooperation with the BND. The president of the German foreign intelligence service told the “Spiegel” that his agency had learned of a “possible case of treason in its own ranks” using intelligence methods. Chancellor Olaf Scholz is said to have been informed several weeks in advance.
Not the first Russian spy in Germany
In the recent past, Russian spies in Germany have repeatedly been unmasked. A month ago, the former reserve officer of the Bundeswehr, Ralph G., was sentenced to a suspended prison sentence in Düsseldorf for secret service activities in the service of the Russian Federation. He had provided information to the Russian military intelligence service GRU between 2014 and 2020.
In April, a Russian scientist who was doing research in Germany also received a suspended sentence in Munich. He passed freely accessible information about the European missile system Ariane to the Russian secret service.
However, the espionage case of the suspected double agent who has now been arrested is much more explosive if the suspicion is confirmed: Carsten L. was sitting directly at the source of highly sensitive information.