The spy thriller surrounding ex-Wirecard manager Jan Marsalek is expanding. In Austria it could become the biggest espionage case in the country's history. Last week, shortly before Easter, Marsalek's alleged helper at the Austrian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Egisto Ott, was arrested. A court ordered pre-trial detention.
The former Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is accused of having spied on behalf of Russian secret services. He is said to have repeatedly obtained information for Jan Marsalek from the Austrian Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism, or BVT for short. Ott had been under investigation for years, but there was never enough evidence to charge him or issue an arrest warrant. But now chat messages from Great Britain are providing new material that weighs heavily on Ott.
The chat messages between Jan Marsalek and the leader of an agent ring in Great Britain show that Egisto Ott is said to have handed over several cell phones belonging to top Austrian officials as well as a laptop with German cryptography to Russian agents in 2022. In addition, Ott is said to have requested the registration address of investigative journalist Christo Grosev on behalf of Marsalek. Grosev was living in Austria at the time and has long been on the Kremlin's enemies list because of his reporting critical of Putin. Around a year after Ott allegedly forwarded the journalist's address to Marsalek, Marsalek's helpers broke into Grosev's apartment and stole his computer.
In this episode of Inside Austria you will hear the story of Egisto Ott, the mole in the Austrian Office for the Protection of the Constitution. We show how Ott allegedly spied for Russia in Vienna. Why was Egisto Ott only arrested now after years of investigation?
In the weekly podcast “Inside Austria,” SPIEGEL and “Standard” look together at the big and small scandals in Austria. Together with journalists from both editorial teams, we reconstruct cases and events that affect the country. We look into the political abyss, follow the investigations surrounding the Sebastian Kurz case and his ÖVP and provide information about an important Austrian topic of the week.