David S. is the name of a man who was detained in Potsdam by officers of the German Federal Office for Criminal Affairs (BKA). This happened in early August 2021. As stated in the justification of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe for the arrest of this man, “Prior to his arrest, David S. was an employee of the British Embassy in Berlin from among the local population. intelligence. The accused received cash for the transfer of information, the amount is unknown. His detention is the result of joint actions of the German and British departments. “
Berlin press has a lot of questions
Is this another high-profile case of espionage? Probably not. The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament, Tom Tagendhat, assesses the suspect as a small fry, the dpa news agency said. It quotes a politician saying in an interview with the BBC: “We are talking about a figure who is somewhere at the very bottom of the hierarchical ladder. This person has definitely made some stupid decisions and betrayed his country.” The British and Germans, monitoring this man for several months, received useful information about the work of Russian intelligence in Berlin, Tagendhat believes.
German journalists, who gathered for a press conference in Berlin the day after the arrest of David S., were interested in questions about whether new sanctions against the Russian Federation would be introduced after this incident, whether Berlin would call the Russian ambassador to the carpet, and whether the German special services found out, Who exactly from the Russian intelligence are talking about – and is he an employee of the Russian embassy?
The German government considers it “very serious” that there is evidence that the detainee’s espionage activities were commissioned by the Russian special services, a spokesman for the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany said in response: accept. Therefore, we will continue to closely monitor the progress of the investigation. ” The journalists were unable to receive any other comments from either the prosecutor’s office or the Ministry of Justice.
Russia in the focus of attention of the German special services
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has long been convinced that Russian spies in Berlin are very active and are trying to find out state secrets in exchange for financial rewards. The report of this German intelligence service mentions 4 countries that are most actively spying against Germany: Russia, China, Iran and Turkey.
The report deals with three cases of actions of the Russian special services that had the strongest impact on the political relations of the Russian Federation with the West: the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter in the UK in 2018, the poisoning of Navalny in Russia in 2020, and the murder of Khangoshvili in Berlin in 2019. – an incident that occurred on the territory of Germany.
What is known about David S.
The federal prosecutor’s office does not provide detailed information about David S. and what documents he handed over to the Russian intelligence. For this reason, the German newspaper Bild, in an article about David S., talks about what happened only descriptively, comparing him with agent James Bond, however, calling it not 007, but “00nikto”. Russian James Bond in Berlin – Putin’s spy?
“The police, the BKA and the constitutional protection department arrived at 23.00 at night to detain him. Potsdam. 4-storey modern building. In front of it is not an Aston Martin parked, but a Ford Fiesta belonging to a spy. The police are searching a two-room apartment with a balcony and blinds drawn down 4 am Birds singing Dawn over Potsdam, home to millionaires, billionaires and former Stasi agents.
The fact that David S. lives in Potsdam is almost kitsch in this story, a detail that fits with all the existing clichés that Berlin is a city of spies. After all, both cities are connected by the legendary Gliniki bridge. In the days of the GDR, the border between West and East Germany ran right here in the middle of the bridge. At this point, the United States and the Russian Federation exchanged spies.
The place where David S. met with the Russian intelligence agent is also probably already known to the investigation. After all, it was monitoring both. This is most likely about one of the cafes in the government quarter of Berlin. The British embassy, where 57-year-old David S. worked, is located very close to the Russian one. Or maybe they met in the Tiergarten and walked there together? There are many suitable places in Berlin and the imagination is limitless.
Not the only spy
The case of David S. is one of many in the city, where dozens of embassies of the world operate, employing thousands of spies – as yet undisclosed. Accusations of espionage in Berlin are not uncommon.
Another example is Jens F. He was prosecuted for espionage in February 2021. He worked for a company that was responsible for the safety of electrical appliances in the Bundestag building. Jens F. had access to plans for the building of the German parliament. According to the ZDF TV channel, in the period from late July to September 2017, a former GDR army officer and secret Stasi officer voluntarily handed over the plans of the building to the Russian special services: “He downloaded the information in PDF format and forwarded it to an employee of the Russian Embassy in Berlin, who is officially in the service of the GRU. ” So specifically, as in the case of Jens, the prosecutor’s office has not yet spoken about David S.’s activities. So there can be a lot of interesting things in this story.
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