How Russian intelligence services recruited ex-Wirecard director Jan Marsalek and hid him in Russia under the guise of a priest

Russian intelligence services recruited Jan Marsalek, former chief operating officer of payments company Wirecard, with the help of model Natalia Zlobina, and after he fled to Russia, hid him under the guise of a priest.

Marsalek is suspected of particularly large-scale fraud in Germany. In 2020, he likely stole two billion euros from Wirecard accounts and then fled to Russia via Belarus. For many years, as investigators previously learned, Jan Marsalek, who was born in Vienna, collaborated with Russian intelligence services and passed on confidential information to them.

In a new investigation, journalists tell how GRU officers found Marsalek. This happened on June 6, 2014, on the yacht Poseidon III, where Russian model Natalya Zlobina, Marsalek’s “lover” and business partner, celebrated her 30th birthday. She introduced Marsalek to her friend Stanislav Petlinsky: This is Stas, a GRU general.

Petlinsky himself (aka Boris Green), investigators found out, is not formally listed in the intelligence services. During the war in Chechnya, Petlinsky was the commander of a GRU special forces unit, his official biography includes the presidential administration, and now he calls himself a “security adviser.” Petlinsky, in turn, introduced Marsalek to other members of the Main Intelligence Directorate and the FSB, among whom was Andrei Chuprigin, a retired military intelligence colonel who worked at the Center for Eastern Civilizational Studies under Petlinsky.

“Marsalek’s new Russian friends opened different doors not only in Russia, but also wherever they could still boast of political connections and weight, for example in Libya,” the journalists note. So, in 2017, Petlinsky and Chuprygin advised Marsalek to acquire the Libyan Cement Company, which was idle in Libya, but it was impossible to resume production due to mines left over from the war. To solve this problem, Marsalek bought one of the oldest Russian PMCs, RSB-Group.

The owners of the PMC on paper remained the same people, but in fact the business was divided into two companies: the new Russian LLC RSB-Group and an offshore company in the Cayman Islands called RSB Group. The owner and director of the Russian legal entity was Kirill Korobeinikov, the son of Stanislav Petlinsky. The company in the Cayman Islands, which had a contract with the Libyan Cement Company, was 25% owned by Korobeinikov, another 25% by Russian Victoria Bowman, wife of Marsalek's partner Joe Bowman, and 50% by Swiss lawyer Richard Cedric Harry Ritter, by proxy, says the investigation.

Marsalek also worked extensively with former Austrian agents. In 2018, according to investigators, he hired as an “adviser” Martin Weiss, who for many years headed the Second Department of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism of Austria (BVT, the main Austrian secret service). They had known him since at least 2015. Weiss ran dozens of people through internal databases for Marsalek to find out what the authorities knew about them.

Another former BVT employee, Egisto Ott, worked for Marsalek. He was suspended from his job after being suspected of espionage, but despite this, he used his network of agents to collect information for Weiss and Marsalek.

Martin Weiss, in particular, asked him to find out about investigative journalist Khrist Grozev after The Insider and Bellingcat’s investigation into the poisoning of Navalny by FSB officers was published in December 2020. In a conversation with Der Spiegel, Ott confirmed that he participated in the surveillance: “I just went to the registry office and paid 3.40 euros to find out where he lives.” He also admitted that he took several photographs of Grozev's house. According to him, this is not illegal and he allegedly did not know why Weiss needed such information.

On June 25, 2020, Wirecard AG declared bankruptcy because almost 2 billion euros disappeared from the companies' accounts. Marsalek had disappeared a few days earlier. One of Petlinsky's business partners organized a private jet, Weiss organized two pilots, and Marsalek bribed Philippine immigration officials to record his arrival in that country. However, in fact, Marsalek flew to Minsk on the night of June 20, and from there he drove to Moscow by car.

In Russia, Marsalek received a passport in the name of Konstantin Bayazov. Investigators learned that a person with that name and date of birth actually exists, but this is a priest who serves in a small church in the Lipetsk region. In September 2020, the new document was taken, taken to annexed Crimea and given to Marsalek by Petlinsky’s assistant and FSB employee Evgenia Kurochkina.

Later, Marsalek was allegedly seen with new passports, one of which was in the name of Alexander Schmidt (he had already used it before), and the second was in the name of Vitaly Malkin, a priest from Vladimir. He stated that he had no idea that anyone was using his passport information. In 2020, he lost his passport and made himself a new one. Marsalek’s passport contained details of exactly that document that Malkin lost.

After Marsalek fled to Russia, he did not stop his activities, British prosecutors believe. According to her, in collusion with a group of Bulgarians in the period from August 30, 2020 to February 8, 2023, he was engaged in “collecting information that is directly or indirectly useful to the enemy and thereby harms the interests and security of [the UK].” Six Bulgarian citizens have been charged.