A former secret service employee is accused of treason. Now a suspected accomplice is reporting secret meetings in Moscow.
The affair about a senior BND employee who is said to have passed on secret documents from the German foreign secret service to the Russian secret service is spreading: A suspected accomplice of BND employee Carsten L. has now admitted to having traveled to Moscow at least twice to there to hand over secret BND documents to employees of the Russian secret service FSB. This was reported by the “Spiegel”. According to the news magazine, the conspiratorial meetings in a Moscow restaurant took place in October and November 2022.
The suspect Arthur E., who has since been arrested, also testified that at the second meeting in Moscow, the FSB agents gave him an envelope containing cash in exchange for the secret BND documents.
Officials from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) arrested the 31-year-old German-Russian Arthur E. on the Saturday before last after arriving from the United States at Munich Airport. FBI investigators had previously questioned him in the USA and confiscated his mobile phones, laptop and hard drive.
suspicion of treason
The Attorney General is investigating Arthur E. and Carsten L. on suspicion of treason. Both suspects are former Bundeswehr soldiers. E. had signed up as a contract soldier in 2009 and was trained as an IT specialist. He left the Bundeswehr at his own request in 2015.
According to information from “Spiegel”, the material handed over in Moscow included printed screenshots of secret tables and data on the number of Russian victims in Ukraine, which the BND had apparently intercepted as part of covert operations. With the documents, the Russian secret service may have been able to draw conclusions about the espionage methods of the BND.
Any other accomplices?
E.’s statements also indicate that Carsten L. may have had other helpers at the BND. For example, E. testified that after his return from the second trip to Moscow, he had not been picked up at Munich airport by L., but by another BND employee. He also took the envelope with the cash. According to information from the “mirror”, the investigators have initiated a procedure. However, there is much to suggest that the BND man was unknowingly harnessed.
The fact that Arthur E. actually traveled to Moscow and stayed there twice for several days is supported by data from Russian flight databases. The “Spiegel” examined this together with the investigative platform “Bellingcat”.
The defenders of Arthur E. and Carsten L. did not want to comment on the allegations. The BND and the federal prosecutor also did not want to comment on the new details in the espionage case.
