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Former Austrian intelligence officer found guilty of spying for the Kremlin

Former Austrian intelligence officer found guilty of spying for the Kremlin

Diana Shevchenko Journalist

23 May 2026, 10:00

Former Austrian intelligence officer found guilty of spying for the Kremlin — Former intelligence officer Egisto Ott.

Egisto Ott, a former Austrian intelligence officer, has been found guilty of collaborating with the Russian secret services. A court in Vienna has established that he passed on confidential information and data from police databases to Moscow

This was reported by RBC-Ukraine, citing the Financial Times.

The court handed down a four-year prison sentence

A jury in Vienna found 63-year-old Egisto Ott guilty of working for the Russian secret services. According to the investigation, between 2015 and 2020 he obtained information from police databases and passed it on to representatives of the Russian Federation. The court sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment. During the trial, Ott claimed that he was allegedly acting as part of a covert operation by Western intelligence services, but the court found these explanations unconvincing.

Investigators established a link to Marsalek

It is reported that Ott collaborated with Jan Marsalek — the former head of Wirecard, who has been in hiding in Moscow since the scandal surrounding the company’s bankruptcy. Investigators consider Marsalek to be one of the key agents of Russian intelligence in Europe. A separate aspect of the case concerned the mobile phones of high-ranking Austrian officials. According to the court, Ott gained access to the devices following the incident on the Danube, copied the information and passed it on to his contacts. The prosecution stated that Ott’s actions were not linked to ideological support for Russia. According to the prosecution, the main motives were financial gain, frustration with his professional life and a desire to take revenge on the system.

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