Secret service expert:

“Apartments are conspiratorial meeting places”

(Bild: krone.tv)

In an interview with krone.tv, historian and Ludwig Boltzmann scientist Dieter Bacher analyzes common intelligence service practices surrounding the Egisto Ott and Jan Marsalek espionage cases: "There is a suspicion that Ott gained information from technical devices or databases through his BAT activities and passed it on to Jan Marsalek. This information was then passed on to Russia via Marsalek." 

Marsalek's involvement was evident based on information from the investigative source "The Insider". Bacher: "The Insider assumes that Marsalek had absconded to Russia. However, he already had connections to the Russian GRU, the military intelligence service, during his time in Austria and while working at Wirecard. There was obviously not only an outflow of information, but also a targeted search for certain information on journalists or people in exile."

Apartments conspiratorial meeting places
The insider concludes that Marsalek was ultimately recruited by the GRU. On the question of how common it was to pass on secret service information in normal apartments such as the "Heinz-Nittel-Hof" municipal building in Vienna-Floridsdorf, Bachler says: "Flats are interesting for various purposes for intelligence service topics. On the one hand, as a conspiratorial meeting place, which we had time and again in Vienna during the Cold War. But apartments can also serve as a depot where I hide and store something until I can hand it over. For example, copies of files or data records, as was also reported in the Ott case. Or they are residences in certain locations, for example if they are opposite interesting authorities. They are then rented by secret services in order to organize wiretapping operations from there."

Historian and Ludwig Boltzmann scientist Dieter Bacher(Bild: krone.tv)

The technical possibilities for all of this have increased dramatically since the Cold War. However, there are also places and rooms that are secured in such a way that they cannot actually be bugged.

Watch the whole interview in the video above!