Ex-Wirecard boss ‘aided UK spy ring’ in Russian intelligence plot, court told
The Austrian boss of a scandal-hit German tech firm has been named in court as part of a suspected spy ring accused of plotting for the Russians.
Jan Marsalek was named in court in London on Friday in the case of five Bulgarians accused of plotting the abduction of Kremlin targets while operating in the UK.
Marsalek – who has been on the run since the financial services and online payments processing firm Wirecard collapsed in 2020 amid allegations of fraud – is alleged to have been the conduit between the alleged spies and Putin’s intelligence services.
He is not charged in the case.
The 43-year-old, who has reportedly fled to Russia, was responsible for Wirecard’s business in Asia, where €1.9 billion (£1.6 billion) in cash that the company supposedly held disappeared.
Wirecard admitted an “elaborate and sophisticated fraud” had been carried out on its operations.
Marsalek became one of Europe’s most wanted men after Interpol issued a red notice for his arrest due to his alleged role in the scandal.
Alleged Bulgarian spy plot
The alleged Bulgarian spy ring is accused of plotting the abduction of targets for Russia while operating in the UK for two and a half years, a court was told on Tuesday.
Five Bulgarians, three men and two women, are charged with conspiring to collect information that would be useful to an enemy between August 2020 and February this year.
Orlin Roussev, 45, of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk; Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, of Harrow, north-west London; Katrin Ivanova, 31, of the same Harrow address; Ivan Stoyanov, 31, from Greenford, west London; and Vanya Gaberova, 29, from Churchway, north-west London appeared via video link at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday morning.
The Crown Prosecution Service have accused the five defendants of UK-based espionage and of collecting information to help with abduction plots.
On Tuesday, at the first court appearance of the five accused of spying, Kathryn Selby, prosecuting, said: “Information was fed back to the UK and reporting was sent from the UK to a tasker on behalf of Russia, a person known as Jan Marsalek.”
Marsalek is not charged in connection with the case.
When describing the charges against the five Bulgarians, Ms Selby told the court that the “operating hub in this country for the offence of espionage” was the property of Mr Roussev.
Marsalek has been wanted on separate matters by Munich police since the collapse of the payment processing firm Wirecard in 2020. He had joined the firm in 2000, on his twentieth birthday, when it was a start-up, with no formal qualifications or work experience.
Following the firm’s collapse he disappeared, after telling his colleagues he was going to the Philippines to prove his innocence.
He reportedly left from a small airfield near Vienna in a private jet arranged for him by a far-Right former Austrian parliamentarian, but Philippine immigration records showing that he had entered the country four days later were faked.
The missing Austrian, who before disappearing lived in a palatial home opposite the Russian consulate in Munich, is now a person of interest to three Western intelligence agencies, according to officials.
Investigators have been tracing his alleged association with individuals or networks linked to Russia’s military intelligence directorate, the GRU – the agency blamed for the attempted assassination of former spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. Among his alleged associates were former GRU colonel Andrey Chuprygin.
In May 2021, the German BND federal intelligence service assessed that Marsalek remained in Russia, with BND chief Bruno Kahl telling the country’s MPs that Marsalek is “suspected near Moscow”.
According to exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Dossier Center, Marsalek received Russian citizenship and held at least two fake Russian passports.
He is also known to have held at least six other passports, including diplomatic cover from the tiny Caribbean nation of Grenada, and at one stage was reportedly living under the protection of the Federal Security Service (FSB) at the lavish Meyendorff Castle, near the Russian capital.
The German newspaper Die Welt reported that BND had “credible information” in 2020 that Marsalek was at a “training centre” in the Moscow suburb of Balashikha, the site of the FSB’s Special Operations Centre – founded by Vladimir Putin in 1998.
The Russian government has claimed it is unaware of Marsalek’s location.
‘Marsalek is a very strange character’
In June 2021, Germany’s governing coalition reported that Marsalek made contact with Russian intelligence through the Austrian-Russian Friendship Society, an organisation backed by the Russian regime to promote networking between senior policymakers in the two countries.
It was alleged that its finance secretary had been receiving classified documents from Marsalek – said to have been illegally obtained from Austria’s interior ministry and security service – and passing them to the country’s far-Right populist party, the FPÖ.
Marsalek, who is alleged to have had links with a company used by the Wagner group of Russian mercenary fighters, also reportedly boasted to friends about his trips to Palmyra, Syria, as a “guest of the Russian military” after they captured the town from Isis, and that he had discussed the Libyan crisis with representatives of the Russian government.
In June 2020, one of his former associates told the Financial Times: “In general, Marsalek is a very strange character: he has an extreme affinity for security and is very mysterious. I could never tell whether it was real or staged.”
Despite being wanted by the German authorities through Interpol, he was able in May 2021 to set up a consulting company in the UK under his name, though claiming to be a Czech national, and registered the firm with Companies House.
There will be questions as to how Marsalek was able to set up a firm in the UK at the time he was wanted by Interpol, apparently evading basic identification verification procedures designed to weed out potential fraud.
A Companies House spokesman said: “We don’t comment on individual companies. Companies House carries out checks to ensure filings are complete, but at present, the Registrar has limited legal powers to verify or validate information which is delivered to her. Measures in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill will significantly strengthen the Registrar’s ability to know who is forming and running companies.
Of those accused of being part of the alleged spy ring, Roussev is alleged to have organised and managed the cell’s operations from the UK.
Roussev, Dzhambazov and Ivanova were previously charged on Feb 11 2023 with possession of false identity documents with improper intention under Section 4 of the Identity Documents Act 2010.
The five defendants, appearing via video link from four separate jails, spoke only to confirm their names and date of birth.
Ms Selby added: “This is an indictable only offence, therefore it has to be sent to the Crown Court. Given this has a national security backdrop, it should be dealt with in accordance with the terrorism protocol.
“People are aware that three of the defendants have already been jointly charged with an offence under the identity cards act. All five of them were arrested back in February this year for offences contrary to the Official Secrets Act.”
The court heard that all five defendants have EU settled status.
There was no Bulgarian translator present for the hearing and no applications for bail were made.
Tan Ikram, the deputy chief magistrate, remanded the five accused in custody and scheduled a further hearing for Oct 13 at the Old Bailey.