Egisto Ott, a former Austrian intelligence officer who spied on investigative journalist Hristo Grozev, was arrested following the publication of a joint investigation by The Insider and Der Spiegel.
According to a report by Austrian newspaper Der Standard, Ott is suspected of selling smartphone data to three high-ranking Austrian officials of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). The data was retrieved while the phones were being repaired after water damage.
Ott, then an employee of Austria's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counter-Terrorism (BVT), handed over the data extracted from the smartphones to the FSB in the summer of 2022. The information first emerged from the UK as part of the ongoing British investigation of Jan Marsalek, the fugitive former COO of German payments firm Wirecard.
Prosecutors believe that Ott used his position in the services to gain access to the classified information and then sell it to another former Austrian counterintelligence officer, Martin Weiss, who in turn worked for Jan Marsalek. The prosecutor's office in Vienna specified that two people were arrested in the same case, but did not publicly name the second suspect.
The stolen smartphones belonged to: Michael Kloibmüller, who for many years was the chief of staff of the Austrian Ministry of the Interior; Federal Police Director Michael Takacs and Gernot Meyer, Director of the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum (BFA). The phones were damaged as a result of an accident in 2017: while traveling on work at the Ministry of the Interior, the boat in which the employees were traveling capsized and their smartphones ended up in the water. The BVT technician tasked with repairing the devices from the water damage then copied the data from the devices and gave them to Ott. The specialist is also currently under investigation.
Private correspondence from Kloibmüller's smartphone later found itself in the possession of the press, leading to an anti-corruption investigation against the official. Data from Takacs and Mayer's smartphones has not been released. As Der Standard notes, Ott and his accomplices were apparently unable to hack them, which may be why they decided to hand them over to the FSB.
Former Wirecard COO Jan Marsalek disappeared in June 2020 along with several billion dollars. A month later, The Insider and Bellingcat were able to prove that the fraudster had fled to Russia or Belarus and had long-standing ties to the FSB.
On March 1 of this year, a joint investigation by The Insider and Der Spiegel revealed details of how Marsalek was recruited. The publications also shared details about how Marsalek actively cooperated with the Wagner Group, passed on to Russia the data he received from the European intelligence agents working for him, and helped organize the surveillance of Hristo Grozev./BGNES