Episode 6: Maestro

Summary

Hot Money: Agent of Chaos

Episode 6: Maestro
Release Date: July 15, 2025
Hosts/Authors: Pushkin Industries & Financial Times
Duration: Approximately 43 minutes

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Introduction

In Episode 6, titled "Maestro," of Hot Money: Agent of Chaos, host Sam Jones delves deeper into the intricate web surrounding Jan Marsalek, the enigmatic chief operating officer of the now-collapsed German fintech giant, Wirecard. Building on the Financial Times' 2020 revelation of a €2 billion fraud at Wirecard, Jones uncovers a labyrinth of espionage, political manipulation, and covert operations that extend far beyond the initial scandal.

The BVT Raid: A Turning Point

The episode opens with a detailed recounting of a pivotal event on February 28, 2018, when Austria's intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Sicherheit und Terrorismusbekämpfung (BVT), was virtually hijacked by a foreign power. This audacious raid occurred on a bitterly cold morning in Vienna, leading to the seizure of a sensitive hard disk containing classified information from international partners, including the CIA and MI5.

Sam Jones (02:07): "This is the day that Austria's intelligence service was on the brink of being hijacked by a foreign power."

Consequences of the Raid

The aftermath was swift and severe. Austria was expelled from the prestigious Club de Berne, a pan-European intelligence network, isolating the country from its allies and casting a shadow over its national security capabilities.

Peter Gridling (14:12): "It was a shock. It was clearly expressed that our partners ... were not able to protect their interest."

Investigations and Internal Turmoil

Following the raid, Peter Gridling, the then-head of the BVT, found himself under intense scrutiny. A 39-page dossier alleging corruption and conspiracy within the BVT surfaced, leading to his suspension and raising suspicions about internal sabotage.

Peter Gridling (08:31): "I only had the opinion that it must be someone on a higher level who has insight in BVT."

Despite his efforts to refute the claims, the change in government dynamics, with the Freedom Party gaining control of the Interior Ministry, escalated the situation, making it difficult for Gridling to clear his name.

The Emergence of Egisto Ott and Martin Weiss

Central to the unfolding drama are Egisto Ott and Martin Weiss, two high-ranking officials within the BVT. Both were arrested in January 2021 on suspicions of espionage but were later released without charges. Weiss subsequently fled to Dubai, deepening the mystery.

Sam Jones (22:03): "I'm working for Russians, but where's the evidence? There is no evidence."

Ott vehemently denies any involvement with Russian intelligence, suggesting instead that internal factions within the BVT and the Austrian political establishment orchestrated the entire affair to discredit the far-right Freedom Party.

Egisto Ott (23:13): "Because he cannot say the truth. Because he cannot say, okay, this was only bullshit."

Unraveling the Jan Marsalek Connection

As investigators delved deeper, the connection to Jan Marsalek became more pronounced. Marsalek, once a high-profile figure at Wirecard, emerged as a central antagonist, orchestrating influence operations aimed at destabilizing Austrian politics and steering intelligence services to serve his and Russia's interests.

Steffi Crisper (33:06): "From the perspective of Putin, what would be great to have in Europe ... is to infiltrate whole Europe and install your people."

Through intercepted communications, it was revealed that Marsalek had been manipulating key figures within the Freedom Party and the Austrian Russian Friendship Society, proposing the creation of a new intelligence agency aligned with his objectives.

Steffi Crisper (35:11): "I think that he could use any allegations to push for something like a raid to happen."

The Concept of Reflexive Control

The episode explores the Russian military strategy of reflexive control, where adversaries are manipulated into making decisions that seemingly align with their own free will but ultimately serve the orchestrator's goals. Marsalek's actions exemplify this tactic, subtly steering Austrian politics and intelligence without overt coercion.

Sam Jones (38:54): "Stoking paranoia in the Freedom Party has given Russia huge leverage to interfere in Austrian politics."

Insights from Steffi Crisper

Austrian MP Steffi Crisper provides a comprehensive analysis of the situation, highlighting how Marsalek's influence operations nearly transformed Austria into a hub for Russian intelligence infiltration. Crisper emphasizes the dire implications of having an intelligence agency compromised by political bias and foreign interests.

Steffi Crisper (37:19): "It would have been logically terrible ... for the interests of the security of people living in Austria, but for foreign interests."

Ongoing Investigations and Future Implications

Despite the complexities and denials from key figures like Ott, ongoing investigations continue to unearth more evidence linking Marsalek to a broader network of espionage activities. The intricate balance between political power, intelligence integrity, and foreign influence remains precarious, with significant ramifications for Austria and its allies.

Peter Gridling (39:04): "From my experience, I have no comparison. We will see what evidence is produced."

Conclusion

Episode 6 of Hot Money: Agent of Chaos masterfully unpacks the convoluted saga of Jan Marsalek and the Austrian intelligence service. Through meticulous reporting and insightful interviews, Sam Jones paints a vivid picture of how individual ambitions and geopolitical strategies intertwine, posing profound questions about national security and the unseen forces shaping global financial landscapes.

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Notable Quotes:

• Peter Gridling (06:31): "Interest, first of all, interest in developments, interest in following up things. A certain feeling."

• Sam Jones (19:36): "This is not true ... we haven't been used for this or something."

• Steffi Crisper (35:11): "I think that he could use any allegations to push for something like a raid to happen."

• Steffi Crisper (37:19): "It is."

• Sam Jones (38:54): "Stoking paranoia in the Freedom Party has given Russia huge leverage to interfere in Austrian politics."

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Hot Money: Agent of Chaos continues to shed light on the shadowy intersections of finance, politics, and espionage, offering listeners a profound understanding of the forces shaping today's economic and geopolitical landscapes.

Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

Previously on Hot Money. He would probably be interested to take the Russian side because for him Russia would be acting properly and more correct than the West.

[Sam Jones]

For example.

[Peter Gridling]

I would say that we are actually at the doorstep of a new ideological war where this counts again as a motive for becoming an agent, for becoming an informer because you want to contribute in this geopolitical power struggle going on between east and West.

[Podcast Host]

It was a bitterly cold morning in February 2018 in Vienna. The snow in the gutters and on the rooftops had hardened into gray ice. At a busy intersection on the outskirts of the city stand two tall white stucco buildings set at a right angle to each other, over decorated with pediments and such in the usual Viennese imperial style. Between the two buildings is a huge armored grey gate. There's no sign, no indication at all of what this place is, just a small plaque that tells you it's property managed by the government. But every window is mirrored in dark blue iridescent glass. This is the bvt, the Bundesamt Fuhrer Facungschutz und Terrorismus be Kempfung, Austria's intelligence agency. At first it seemed like a routine visit. The buzzer for the outer gate sounded and the duty watchman saw the image of a single individual dressed in civilian clothes flicker up on his screen. The visitor holds up a police ID badge and he says he has a meeting in the building. The watchman flicks a switch to operate the first gate and the policeman swings through the big iron single person turnstile. He steps into a grey room on the other side and it's at this point that things take an unexpected turn. The man the watchman just let in, he's no ordinary policeman. He slams past two officers in the little grey room and through the open door of the guardhouse control room and demands the master key. He's here under orders from the Ministry of Justice, he says, acting on behalf of the Anti Corruption Bureau. And he's got a warrant. Under pressure, the duty watchman, he folds. This was not in his training. He gives the policeman the master key. The grey gate swings open. And then, at speed, from places hidden on side streets not far from the gates, vans scream into action and drive into the courtyard. Inside the vans are dozens of police officers wearing balaclavas. They get out and they pour into the building. This is the day that Austria's intelligence service was on the brink of being hijacked by a foreign power. A foreign power working so deeply in the shadows that it turned the Austrian security services against each other. What would unfold reveals how seemingly small acts of misdirection and slow manipulation can compromise the national security of a whole country. A kind of intelligence operation that Russia is very good at and that it's put to use on a decade long campaign to manipulate Europe's far right for its own ends. The person behind what happened that day in Vienna is someone whose name you know well by now. Jan Marsalek. I'm Sam Jones from the Financial Times and Pushkin Industries. This is hot money. Season 3 Agent of Chaos Episode 6 Maestro to learn more about what happened that day at the bvt? I sat down with Peter Gridling. He served as Austria's intelligence chief, the head of the BVT for more than a decade. What makes a good intelligence officer?

[Peter Gridling]

Interest, first of all, interest in developments, interest in following up things. A certain feeling. Because whenever you see that something happens, you never know how this will develop.

[Podcast Host]

That feeling is that sort of, would you say, intuition? I mean, I suppose what you've got often in this world is only a few small bits of evidence. It's never the whole picture. And what you're talking about is the ability to see the links between them.

[Peter Gridling]

Exactly. It's often intuition.

[Podcast Host]

Peter is careful when he talks. Deliberate, disinclined to make definitive statements. Even for a career spy, he's remarkably taciturn. He was the man in charge when the raid on the BVT's headquarters, the biggest disaster in the organization's history, took place a year before the raid. In 2017, nine years into Peter's post, something strange happened. A 39 page dossier was mailed to politicians, police and a group of Austrian journalists. A dossier of accusations against the bvt, including against Peter. The dossier listed examples of alleged corruption, incompetence and conspiracy within the bvt. It also painted a picture of an organization that was conspiring to keep Austria's far right Freedom Party in out of power. You might remember the Freedom Party because they're the ones that ended up in an Ibizan villa appearing to make deals with someone posing as a Russian oligarch's niece. All caught on tape. The dossier was also spiced with lurid details of sex parties at the BVT for good measure. Peter was baffled about where all these allegations came from. Although the detailed knowledge the dossier contained about the BVT's personnel and operations and made Peter think it might be an insider.

[Peter Gridling]

I only had the opinion that it must be someone on a higher level who has insight in pvt.

[Podcast Host]

The claims are so fantastical though that Peter feels he won't have too much trouble pushing back against them.

[Peter Gridling]

When I read the allegations, I thought this is stupid. And I offered myself to provide documentation that this is stupid that isn't anything.

[Podcast Host]

But things get a little more complicated when a new government is formed. The Freedom Party gain control of the Interior Ministry. The Interior Ministry is like the Department of Homeland Security or the Home Office. It's the department that's in charge of the security services. So the Freedom Party are now in control of the bvt. The problem is that dossier. It's seeded distrust and the Freedom Party are now paranoid that they're under threat from the bvt. It's a bit like how Trump and the MAGA movement have seemed to feel about the FBI, convinced that powerful figures within the agency had been conspiring against them. This all sounds quite tricky for Peter. He's a pragmatist, though, and prosecutors don't take further action. So he pushes it all to one side and hopes it'll go away. But it turns out that this is only the start.

[Peter Gridling]

I never had an indication of what kind of problems would come up. And so 28th February 2018 was an absolute surprise.

[Podcast Host]

When police swarm into the BVT on that cold winter's morning, Peter Gridling is not in his office. He's across town with his boss, the Secretary General of the Interior Ministry. An urgent meeting.

[Peter Gridling]

The Secretary General informed me that there are also investigations against me. He presented to me the written allegation against me.

[Podcast Host]

Which was what?

[Peter Gridling]

Which was that I have misused my authority in two cases. Once I have not ordered the deletion of data and once I had allowed the storage of data which was illegally obtained. And both of the cases were nonsense. But I had the impression that at this early stage of the official investigation, the prosecutor was not really interested. They listened to me, they gave me a chance to explain, but they didn't really listen to what I said or look at the documentation that I offered to provide.

[Podcast Host]

Peter realizes that this is all linked back to that anonymous dossier. Previously, prosecutors had dismissed the allegations about the bvt, but now they seem to be taking them seriously.

[Peter Gridling]

After all, we knew that the information based on the anonymous letters was never enough for the judiciary to take measures. What has changed in the meantime? That suddenly that was the case.

[Podcast Host]

When he finally gets out of the meeting, Peter speaks with panicked colleagues. They tell him what happened two miles away at the BVT's headquarters. It sounds like it was chaos. It seems like police didn't even really know what they were looking for. They went from room to room in the building, indiscriminately snatching up documents. But the BVT offices are labyrinthine. And since the whole layout of this building and everything about it is secret, no one even really knew where to go. Did they know what they were looking for? Was it specific? Or they just.

[Peter Gridling]

That was not well prepared? When you don't know what what you look for, you will never find the information that you look for. If you want to Seize electronic information. You should know something about the organization and the ID in order to be prepared and not to come in and say where are your computers?

[Podcast Host]

But then one police squad, they inadvertently do something disastrous. They barge into the IT department itself. This is the moment that the raid sends shockwaves beyond the bvt, beyond Austria even.

[Peter Gridling]

Unfortunately, one officer in the ID was preparing for the annual backup of the intelligence system. That's why he had a hard disk on his table which contained sensitive intelligence. And this hard disk was taken.

[Podcast Host]

In fact, it was probably one of the most sensitive things that the BVT has in its possession. This hard disk doesn't just contain BVT intelligence, but also intelligence shared under strict secrecy by partner agencies from all over the world. Classified documents from the CIA, from Britain's MI5. Peter and the senior leadership of the BVT go into crisis mode that afternoon and it becomes pretty clear that they're going to have to get in touch with their allies and tell them what has just happened.

[Peter Gridling]

It was a shock. It was clearly expressed that our partners that this influences the cooperation because we were not able to protect their interest.

[Podcast Host]

I can't imagine those were comfortable conversations. No one likes to have to call up a friend and tell them that the thing they entrusted to you, something secret and sensitive, well, it's no longer a secret. Only in this situation, lives could be at risk. Details of sensitive operations, potential information that could identify agents. The consequences are pretty dire. Austria becomes an intelligence pariah when it's frozen out of the club. A top secret club, the Club de Bern. Can you explain what the Club de Berne is?

[Peter Gridling]

No.

[Podcast Host]

The Club de Bern is a pan European intelligence network named after the Swiss capital of Bern. Its workings are highly secret. Officially, it has no secretariat, no physical presence. All of Europe's spy chiefs are members and gather for secret meetings several times a year to discuss the most pressing issues on their agendas. And members of the club, they use their resources to make sure other members are safe. So not a good thing to be kicked out of. To add insult to injury, this ostracism, it becomes public knowledge. Someone leaks a communication that the club has sent to its members. The document's header reads to all except BVT Vienna. The Austrian media have a field day. Peter's own situation, meanwhile, gets worse. The Interior Ministry suspends him and he finds himself questioning everything, wondering how things have fallen apart so quickly.

[Peter Gridling]

Is there anything that you have done wrong and your thoughts go around and cost you some nights?

[Podcast Host]

What he doesn't realize yet is that there is more going on beneath the surface because all of this is being orchestrated by Jan Marsalek and his associates.

[Dina Temple Rastin]

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[Podcast Host]

Peter Gridling couldn't stop turning everything over in his head. Why had the anonymous allegations made against him and the BVT suddenly been taken seriously? He might never have found the answer to that question or understood the events that led to the raid. And had there not been an unexpected change of government in Austria in 2019, the year after the raid happened, the Ibiza scandal erupted and the far right Freedom Party, they got kicked out of government. The new government, it ordered a police inquiry into what became known as the BVT affair. A special investigatory group was set up, called Age, from the Greek word for rumors. Agay Farmer started out investigating the BVT affair. But what it found out led it to switch its focus to Jan Marsalek. The first thing investigators wanted to get to grips with were the events that had led to the raid itself. What they soon found out was that days before the raid, a crucial piece of written evidence had landed on the desk of the anti corruption prosecutor in Vienna. It was a witness statement, sworn testimony from one of the most senior employees of the bvt. And it seemed to confirm that those anonymous allegations from the previous year were true after all. That some kind of conspiracy was underway. That the BVT was working to undermine the far right Freedom Party. And this witness. It was the BVT's head of operations, one of the agency's most powerful figures, one of Peter's deputies.

[Peter Gridling]

That was Martin Weisz.

[Podcast Host]

And how would you describe Martin Weisz?

[Peter Gridling]

One of my biggest disappointments.

[Podcast Host]

Peter and Martin Weiss had worked closely together for more than 25 years.

[Peter Gridling]

It was even more than the professional relationship. It was kind of friendship. And that's why I was really very disappointed about him.

[Podcast Host]

Because he betrayed you?

[Peter Gridling]

That was my feeling, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Peter couldn't understand why Weiss would have done this. They'd had a disagreement at work the year before, but nothing serious. Peter had put his foot down about something, so maybe Weiss was still angry with him. But as Peter turned all of this over in his head. He began to wonder if this was more than just a workplace grievance, because he also learned the name of the person investigators suspected of writing the original dossier. Someone who happened to know Martin Weiss well. Egisto Ott, a burly, no nonsense, former police inspector with a varied career working for the BVT in counterterrorism around.

[Peter Gridling]

He's a complicated personality, and in teams there was always a problem with him. He could not integrate.

[Podcast Host]

Ott had been on Peter's radar earlier for an entirely different reason. Peter had suspended him and reported him for suspected espionage. Peter said he'd been tipped off by a partner agency, a major ally, who told him they had evidence Egisto was a traitor.

[Peter Gridling]

And it went back to his time in Turkey, where he, according to a source of the partner service, he had many contacts with Russian intelligence officers. So there was a suspicion that he got cultivated there. And that might be the case that he has worked for Russians here in Vienna.

[Podcast Host]

Investigators thought there could be a Russian angle to the BVT story too. And in January 2021, they arrested OTT and Weiss. Both later got released, but only after investigators had made copies of all their digital records and searched their houses. After Martin Weiss was released, he disappeared. He left Austria and moved to Dubai. We tried to reach him, but couldn't get in touch. In his interviews with police, Weiss always denied having worked for Russia. I also spent months trying to contact Egisto Ott. And then right before we were due to release this episode, I finally managed to reach him.

[Sam Jones]

Hello.

[Podcast Host]

Hello, Igisto. Here's Sam Jones from the Financial Times.

[Sam Jones]

Ah, hello.

[Podcast Host]

Do you mind if we speak in English?

[Sam Jones]

Yes, we can speak also English, but I beg your pardon, My English is not the best.

[Podcast Host]

Ott is half Italian, and Italian, he tells me, is his mother tongue. German second, English third. He spent his life working for Austrian police and intelligence in various locations around Europe. Most of what he did is secret, but we do know that Ott worked on uncovering the fascist letter bomber Franz Fuchs in the 1990s. Ott is proud of his career and he's deeply frustrated by the investigations against him.

[Sam Jones]

It's against Ott. He is the big spy for Russia.

[Podcast Host]

He denies this.

[Sam Jones]

I'm working for Russians, but where's the evidence? There is no evidence.

[Podcast Host]

Ott says that his lawyers have demanded four times to see the evidence that backed up Peter's claim he was working for the Russians, the one that led to Peter suspending him in 2017, before the raid even took place. But it hasn't been provided. And Ott thinks that Peter has just made it up.

[Sam Jones]

Do you have not got any information from that?

[Podcast Host]

So do you think he was lying? He made it up exactly.

[Sam Jones]

Because he cannot say the truth. Because he cannot say, okay, this was only bullshit. This was only a storytelling by me.

[Podcast Host]

He says it's the same with the accusation that he is the author of the 39 page dossier, the one that led to the raid.

[Sam Jones]

I didn't write them. There is no evidence. They're only writing stories.

[Podcast Host]

Ott says this whole thing isn't about Russia. He says the BVT themselves, in cahoots with members of the Austrian political establishment, set the whole thing up. The raid was basically their plan all along. And that they did it in order to discredit Austria's far right by making it look like they'd caused this mess only months after they'd been given control of Austria's security services. For the first time. In Ott's version of events, Austria was suspended from the Club de Berne not because of the raid, but because Peter Gridling secretly asked for the suspension specifically to create bad press about Austria. So you mean you think that Peter asked the Club de Berne to. To suspend the bflt?

[Sam Jones]

Exactly. We have even. We have the witnesses. What he did is normally called Mukfara.

[Podcast Host]

Like high treason.

[Sam Jones]

Exactly.

[Podcast Host]

I should note here that we haven't seen any evidence to support this claim. And Peter Gridling, he denies ever having done anything like this. Ott admits that that he and Martin Weiss, they were close and they did regularly discuss what they saw as big problems at the BVT because they thought it was in the pocket of the Austrian political establishment. He thinks he and Weiss were framed as the provocateurs responsible for the raid precisely because they'd complained about corrupt activities at the BVT in the past.

[Sam Jones]

Now they are saying we are corrupt. Very beautiful.

[Podcast Host]

Now all of this is getting a little bit smoke and mirrors. The thing is, there's a reason why the cloud of suspicion isn't so easily dispersed from around De Gisto, despite his protests. It's because he and Martin Weisz, they both knew. They both worked for someone else.

[Sam Jones]

In my memory, he was very, very smart. Tough, smug, young. Good truth.

[Podcast Host]

The story that is out there that's different to yours is that actually this guy Jan Marsalek is behind this and that he was using you and Martin Weiss to try and manipulate the Ministry and gain control of the bf.

[Sam Jones]

This is not. This is not true. Because he knows nothing about this because we haven't been used for this or something. No, it's not true.

[Podcast Host]

Ott admits that he knew Jan Marsalek, but in his telling he only ever really did a little bit of freelancing for him. Ott says the reason he knew Marsalek was because Martin Weisz, who Ott was close to, had gone to work for Marsalek. In fact, Weiss even had an office of his own in Prinzriegentenstrasse. And one day Weiss asked Ott to help create a wiretap proof room there. What did Martin tell you about Marsalek? Did he ever talk about who this guy was?

[Sam Jones]

It's only, only the. Yeah, he's the CEO of Wirecard. And smart, tough, traveling a lot.

[Podcast Host]

When you found out or heard, I guess read in the newspapers that Marsalek had disappeared and Wirecard had, you know, gone bankrupt. Did you do anything? What was your reaction?

[Sam Jones]

No, this was. It was on this day in these days. I think it was 20, 19, 20, 2020. I can't remember. Yeah, when it came out, I was even surprised.

[Podcast Host]

Did you tell anyone that you'd been to his house and had this, you know, he wanted a secret room?

[Sam Jones]

No, no, no.

[Podcast Host]

Marsalek had just become one of the most wanted men in Europe, suspected of being a Russian spy. It seems strange to me that Ott wouldn't mention to anyone that he knew Marsalek. But then again, this is what he told me when I asked him who he thought Jan Marsalek really was. Do you think he's a Russian spy or do you think he has other interests?

[Sam Jones]

I don't think so. That he's a Russian spy? I don't think so.

[Podcast Host]

Ott rejects all the allegations about his role in the BVT affair and says he definitely wasn't a Russian agent, but he actually sympathizes with the objective of the plot. He says he wishes the Freedom Party had kicked out Gridling and completely reformed the bvt and that Russia's threat to Europe is overblown. On the contrary, he thinks that there are powerful hawks in the West. He calls them eagles trying to stoke tensions with Moscow by confecting all of these scandals. I gusto, you were a counter intelligence officer at the BFRT for a long time in your career. What do you think? Is Russia a threat to Austria?

[Sam Jones]

No, I think there are some, let's say some idiots here in the Western part and even in Austria and in the European Union. I'm thinking, really they want to have the Third World War I'm so happy that I was born in 62 and we grew up very peaceful. Even my kids have grown up very peaceful. I don't want even that my grandsons can grow up without a war. And now we have more than 80 years that we don't have a war. There's no reason that Russia will attack the European Union or will attack Austria.

[Podcast Host]

What is not alone in this view of Russia in Austria or elsewhere in Central Europe? I hear it a lot, of course, like all pieces of good whataboutism, there's truth in it. The last 30 years have involved a lot of big wars started by hawkish politicians in the West. But Russia is no paragon of peace. And you might feel rather differently about Putin's threat to Europe if you were sat in Tallinn or Vilnius or Riga, European capitals that Russia very much believes belong within its sphere of control. The idea that Russia is a good neighbour, it's just not remotely true. Ott was charged with breaching state secrecy in November 2020. The trial opened this March and three days later he was acquitted. Prosecutors are considering further charges. There's a reason why espionage trials are so rare. Because trying to prove someone is a spy is not like proving any other crime. Everything can hinge on almost impossible to answer questions of motive and awareness. I can't tell you what Ott really did or didn't know about Jan Marsalek's involvement in the BVT affair. But I can tell you that there is more evidence to weigh in the case than just his perspective versus Peter Gridling's. Peter, in any case, isn't under investigation and he retired in 2020. Over the last five. Over the last five years, RK Pharma's investigators have been slowly amassing a trove of evidence, pulling in more and more witnesses, gaining access to more and more messages from suspects phones on the trail of what the BVT raid was all about. And on the trail of Jan Marcelo. And I just so happen to know somebody who has access to a lot of that evidence.

[Steffi Crisper]

Steffi Crisper the evidence that led to the raid was incredibly weak and should have never have led to this raid to happen. And we are still suffering from this raid.

[Dina Temple Rastin]

The digital world feels more chaotic than ever. Huge data breaches, AI threatening jobs, foreign meddling, that creeping feeling of obsolescence. It's information overload. I'm Dina Temple Rostand, host of Click Here from PRX and Recorded Future News. Want to understand how we got here and how you can get ahead of it all? Listen to Click here. We can help you make sense of all the noise. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Podcast Host]

You might remember Steffi from one of our earlier episodes. She's the Austrian MP and a member of the two special parliamentary committees that were set up to get to the bottom of what happened. Not only did Steffi have access to the classified information regarding the BVT affair, she also had access to the classified information surrounding Austria's far right Freedom Party and their links to Russia.

[Steffi Crisper]

If you have so many people being somehow critical of the institution they work in, it's dangerous because it makes them also be receptible for corruption or working for other people's interests. And that's what we realized, that it really happened because we know nowadays that Marsalek was able to find people in this institution B40 that are open for working with with him. So, against the interests of Austria.

[Podcast Host]

Steffi was in a position to see the three sides of this plot. She knew that investigators believed OTT had manufactured the first dossier despite his denials. Weiss had then provided sworn secret testimony to substantiate it and trigger the raid. And Marsalek? Well, Steffi also found out that Marsalek had been playing the role of conductor maestro. Steffi had gained access to messages exchanged between senior members of the Freedom Party and people at the top of the Austrian Russian Friendship Society, among them Jan Marsalek. In these messages, Jan presented himself as a BVT insider who was offering solutions on how the Freedom Party might try and reform Austria's security apparatus, which he agreed was was operating as a deep state against the interests of far right politicians. Carefully and slowly, Jan floated the idea of creating a new intelligence agency to replace the corrupt bvt. Some in the Freedom Party were so interested in this idea that they even began drawing up policy papers on how to achieve it. The plan was that this new agency, it would be run by reliable people and this Yan would he knew exactly who the right people might be. After seeing the evidence, Steffi is sure that none of this happened by chance and that Marsalek was undoubtedly advancing a plan. The raid was just the first step.

[Steffi Crisper]

I think that he could use any allegations to push for something like a raid to happen. For him to be able to say now we reform the whole thing and for him to put then their people there, not objectively the best and the.

[Podcast Host]

Most competent, but the people controlled by the fpo. Exactly, the FPO as in the Freedom Party of Austria. And then I guess that makes sense for Marshalek, because those people are also his People, in this instance, exactly what would that have meant for Austria, do you think, to have an intelligence agency that was basically controlled by FB appointees or people close to them?

[Steffi Crisper]

It would have been logically terrible because you would have an intelligence service that is not working in a competent way for the interests of the security of people living in Austria, but for foreign interests. Because from the perspective of Putin, what would be great to have in Europe a country as a door to infiltrate whole Europe and there install your people and the best would be to have them in ministries, even better in the security area, in the intelligence service. And this is what I think started to happen via Marsalek, having his people in the B40 who were perhaps only frustrated, perhaps only useful idiots, to be a source for information and perhaps in the long run also for changing the work and the focus of work in the intelligence service in the interest of Russia, away from Russia to only other issues Putin doesn't bother about.

[Podcast Host]

It's quite scary how close that came to maybe being a reality.

[Steffi Crisper]

It is.

[Podcast Host]

There's a way you can look at all of this and think, as plots go, this all seems pretty fragile. A lot of people needed to believe the right thing at the right moment for this plan to work. When we think of spy plots in movies, they're always so engineered. And sure, intelligence often does work like that. But what Russia is also very good at is influence operations, which by their nature are more exploratory, harder to grasp. And that's what we have here, I think Marsalek operating for himself and for the Russians as a highly successful agent of influence. Back in the Cold War, Russian intelligence experts talked about this idea of something called reflexive control. It's a Russian military idea as much as it is a spying one, the premise of which is to avoid forcing someone to do something, don't hold a gun to their head. The optimum solution is for they themselves to choose to do it, because you have so shaped their reality that they don't even realize that the free will they're exercising is what you want too. Stoking paranoia in the Freedom Party has given Russia huge leverage to interfere in Austrian politics, a trick they have repeated elsewhere in Europe too. And maybe the lesson from this part of the story is that I think Marsalek is pretty good at doing this kind of thing. Peter Gridling, he seems to feel the same. Have you ever in your career come across an agent like Jan Marshalek or some is. Does he compare to anything you've seen before or.

[Peter Gridling]

From my. From my experience. I have no comparison. We will see what on evidence is produced. But if you want to guess about how worse would an intelligence asset like Mars be, then you would say, well.

[Podcast Host]

Very worthy, very, very valuable as a very valuable.

[Peter Gridling]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

But it turns out that Marsalek's skills extended way beyond operations of influence, as Austrian investigators soon began to discover for themselves. Because as they unravelled who all the people connected to Marsalek were, they turned up more and more leads beyond Austria, Marsalek's very effective Vienna network. Well, it wasn't the only group of agents he ran. There was at least one more. They carried out multiple covert operations and they were based in the uk. Coming up on Hot Money.

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Marslake really was like a sort of.

[Podcast Host]

Ghost that haunted this trial. He was clearly the organizing mind and he was there, you know, in black and white in telegram messages. First of all, I thought someone might.

[Steffi Crisper]

Have been murdered, but I did think.

[Podcast Host]

Well, there's no ambulances or anything and there's no police cars. And then I saw these men or women all blacked out with balaclavas on Hot Money is a production of the Financial Times and Pushkin Industries. It was written and reported by me, Sam Jones. The senior producer and co writer is Peggy Sutton. Our producer is Izzy Carter. I our researcher is Maureen Saint. Our show is edited by Karen Shakurji. Fact checking by Kira Levine. Sound design and mastering by Jake Gorski and Marcelo d' Oliveira with additional sound design by Izzy Carter. Original music from Matthias Bossi and John Evans of Stellwagen Symphonette. Our show art is by Sean Carney. Our executive producers are Cheryl Brumley, Amy Gaines McQuaid and Matthew Garaghan. Additional editing by Paul Murphy. Special thanks to rula Khalaf, Dan McCrum, Laura Clark, Alistair Mackey, Manuele Zaragoza, Nigel Hansen, Vicki Merrick, Eric Sandler, Morgan Ratner, Jake Flanagan, Jacob Goldstein, Sarah Nix and Greta Cohn. I'm Sam Jones.

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[Podcast Host]

This is an iHeart podcast.