In addition to the mobile phones belonging to high-ranking officials, the laptop and USB sticks owned by the Bulgarian journalist Hristo Grozev, at least one more secret laptop was smuggled from Vienna to Moscow in 2022. He was later found in the apartment of former Austrian constitutional protection officer Egisto Ott, accused of spying for Russia.
This became clear during last night’s meeting of the Austrian National Security Council, dedicated to the espionage affair surrounding Egisto Ott and the former manager of “Wirecard” Jan Marsalek.
During searches of Ott’s addresses in Carinthia and Vienna, several pieces of evidence were found confirming his espionage. These are two SINA laptops ie. specially secured devices used by the Secret Service that may contain extremely sensitive data.
At the end of March, a SINA laptop was found at Ott’s residence in Carinthia, and another was found hidden in the kitchen of his apartment in Vienna, still in its original packaging.
It is not clear what Ott intended to do with them. An investigation is currently underway into how he got hold of the laptops. He has admitted that he knew of a total of five SINAs, one of which was overseas, but not in Russia, where Ott is suspected of spying. Another was to his employee and a third to a journalist in Austria.
Ott is suspected of having sold a SINA laptop to Russian intelligence. In November 2022, the device was handed over to men with fake passports in Vienna and taken via Istanbul to the headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in Moscow. It probably contained confidential information.
The deal is believed to have been arranged by Marsalek, who is said to now work for Russia’s FSB. 20,000 euros were given for the laptop. This is clear from chats that Marsalek has had with the alleged leader of a Bulgarian spy network, Orlin Rusev, since 2022. It is understood from them that in addition to the mobile phones belonging to high-ranking officials and the laptop and USB sticks owned by the journalist Hristo Grozev, at least one more secret laptop was smuggled from Vienna to Moscow in 2022. It was allegedly found in the apartment of one of Ott’s family members and was a SINA laptop.
The chats even talk about taking “one of the laptops” in Vienna. Ott is therefore believed to have had several SINA devices, according to claims by Standard and ORF. According to them, Marsalek and Rusev feared that the laptop in question might be equipped with a tracking device. “Iran will be a happy buyer,” Marsalek finally wrote in the chat, reports the Report.
Intelligence expert Thomas Rigler believes the SINA laptop could not have been sent to Iran. The reason is that the country supplies Russia with drones and helps it in the war with Ukraine, so it has an ally.
Ott used his ex-son-in-law’s apartment in Vienna to hand over official mobile phones owned by high-ranking Interior Ministry officials and a SINA laptop containing classified, highly sensitive intelligence data to Russian intelligence officials without his ex-son-in-law to know about it.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism has been repeatedly warned about Russian infiltrations, reports Falter. As early as 2016, an official in charge of espionage warned his superiors that the Russian intelligence service had stepped up its activities in Austria and the EU on a huge scale, and Austria’s resources were hardly sufficient to deal with the large number of cases.
Two years later, officials at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Fight against Terrorism have again repeatedly warned that there are increased recruitment attempts by Russian intelligence in Austria and complained that only three officers have to deal with the protection against Russian intelligence.
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner emphasized last night on the late TV news bulletin that the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence, the successor organization to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Fight against Terrorism, had undergone a personnel offensive and now had sufficient personnel, who are responsible for Russian espionage.
2024-04-10 14:05:00
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