Spiegel: Data from Western intelligence contributed to the arrest of a Russian spy in Germany

Data from Western intelligence contributed to the arrest of a Russian spy who worked for the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in Germany. Its experts found information in Russia that could have been prepared by the BND.

Spiegel writes about this with reference to its own sources.

A few weeks ago, Western intelligence found data on the Russian side that could be unequivocally identified as having been prepared by the BND. It was one or more documents related to Russia.

After that, they began to study this information in Germany and established the source of the leak — BND employee Karsten L., who worked as a unit leader in the technical intelligence department. He had access to a large number of highly classified documents.

The attention of the special services was attracted by another person in the BND, who opened documents related to the transfer of data to Russia on his work computer. But in Germany they do not yet consider her an accomplice, but think that Karsten L. used her as a cover.

• The arrest of the BND employee became known on December 22, when the Federal Committee of Germany accused him of passing state secrets to Russia in 2022. In recent years, Germany has convicted several people who spied for Russia. However, the double agent in the Federal Intelligence Service was announced for the first time since 2014.