Germany announces the arrest of 3 potential spies working for a foreign intelligence service

Three men suspected of gathering information for a foreign intelligence service were arrested; The defendants are now pending investigation, in Frankfurt.

German federal prosecutors said the men were arrested in Frankfurt, and the prosecution spoke of the charge of carrying out espionage activity for an intelligence service.

Accordingly, the accused were placed in pre-trial detention.

The suspects were arrested on Wednesday by the forces of the Hesse Criminal Bureau of Investigation and authorized publication by police on Friday afternoon.

According to the German Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, the three men are from Ukraine, Armenia and Russia.

The defendants were reportedly commissioned by a foreign intelligence service in Germany to gather information on a Ukrainian living in Germany, specifically, on June 19, 2024, the men surveyed a café in Frankfurt where the target was supposed to be.

Federal prosecutors didn’t clarify the foreign intelligence service for which the defendants were collecting information.

Prosecutors say that it’s still unknown exactly which foreign intelligence service they were working for.

The federal prosecutor’s office said the three agents were seen on Wednesday exploring a café in Frankfurt where the target was expected to arrive.

There are serious concerns in Germany that Russia is spying on German forces or on citizens in Germany, especially since more than a million Ukrainians have been present since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war on its territory.

There have been previous successful espionage attempts by the Russians, most notably the transfer of information to a dialogue by a group of military personnel about the nature of the appropriate weapons used with Russia.

The reason for the publication of this information was embarrassing to the German authorities at the time, in addition to Berlin announcing the discovery of cyber interference targeting it that originated from Russian hackers.

Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office said the agents appeared Thursday before a court that stressed the need for their continued detention.

“The three defendants were visiting Germany on behalf of a foreign intelligence service in order to gather information about a person from Ukraine residing here in Germany,” the prosecutor’s office said.