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Double agent 'stole' list of German intel agents' names

January 14, 2015

A double agent reportedly stole a list which contained both the real and undercover names of 3,500 German intelligence employees. The spy was arrested last July on suspicions of working for the CIA.

https://p.dw.com/p/1EJnz
Bundesnachrichtendienst BND
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

Investigators found a list containing confidential information about employees from Germany's foreign intelligence agency (BND) saved on a private hard drive of the alleged double agent Markus R, German media reported on Wednesday. They had seized the hard drive in a search of his apartment last summer.

The 32-year old man believed to have stolen the top-secret BND document from 2011, according to the German mass-circulation newspaper Bild. The list reportedly includes identities of the agents working at the German embassies, as well as those in German army missions in Afghanistan, Mali, Lebanon and Sudan.

The stolen document could jeopardize more than half of some 6,500 agents of BND. However, it remains unclear whether the double agent sold the list to another intelligence agency, said Bild in its Wednesday edition, citing sources close to the investigation.

Attempt to contact the Russians

Markus R. is suspected of selling 218 different documents to American foreign intelligence, during a period of two years. According to both American and German sources, Markus R was a "walk-in agent," who presented himself to the CIA agents in 2012, and offered them information.

He also attempted to contact the Russian consulate Munich in May, with an offer to sell BND documents. Agents from Germany's domestic intelligence service intercepted the email in question, and used it to set a trap. Markus R. previously held a desk job at BND headquarters in southern Germany, according to the media reports.

dj/kms (Reuters, dpa)