An employee of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and a self-employed German businessman have been charged with treason for allegedly passing secret documents to Russia, German prosecutors said on September 8.
The intelligence officer, who has been identified only as Carsten L. in line with German privacy laws, allegedly passed information classified as state secrets to Russian spies after the invasion of Ukraine. He has been in pretrial detention since his arrest in Berlin in December.
The second suspect, identified as Arthur E., was arrested in January. He allegedly acted as a middleman, taking the documents from Carsten L to Russia and delivering them to Russian intelligence officers.
Federal prosecutors allege that the information Carsten L. shared with Arthur E. is a state secret under German law, making it a particularly grave offense.
Federal prosecutors say that Carsten L. had been acquainted with Arthur E. since May 2021 and the latter was in contact with a Russian-based businessman with ties to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). The three allegedly met in September 2022 and conspired to procure sensitive BND information for the FSB.
Prosecutors say Arthur E. was given a list of "questions of particular interest," and Carsten L. procured the answers.
Carsten L. supplied a total of nine internal BND documents related to a project on technical intelligence gathering on two occasions in September and October of 2022. The indictment alleges he either printed the documents out or took photos of them on his computer screen, prosecutors said in a statement.
He gave the material to Arthur E., who photographed the printouts, took the digitized data to Moscow, printed it out and handed it to the FSB in meetings with Russian agents, they added.
Carsten L. received at least 450,000 euros ($482,000) from the FSB and Arthur E. got at least 400,000 euros in cash, which Arthur E. picked up in Moscow in November 2022, the prosecutors say.
After the cash pickup, Carsten L. arranged for Arthur E. to be “smuggled” past German customs under the guise of professional reasons after he returned from Russia, according to prosecutors.
The two men were charged with two counts of “joint perpetration of especially serious treason,” prosecutors said.
Germany has become one of the leading suppliers of military and financial aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.