The former security guard of the British Embassy in Germany, David Ballantyne Smith, who was suspected of collecting classified data in favor of Russia, was exposed thanks to a special operation of the British counterintelligence MI5, write Bloomberg and Reuters.
Smith pleaded guilty to spying for Russia in November 2022. At a hearing in a London court on February 13, prosecutors said he had been collecting information from March 2018 to August 2021. It was then that he was uncovered and detained shortly after meeting with MI5 officers who posed as a Russian military intelligence officer named Irina and Russian Dmitry.
The decision to launch the operation was made after it emerged that in November 2020, Smith sent a letter to the Russian military attache in Berlin, Sergei Chukhrov, containing confidential information about the British Embassy in Berlin and its employees, including their addresses, phone numbers, documents and photographs. During the operation, Smith was asked to collect data on “Dmitry”, a Russian who allegedly collaborated with the British authorities. In court, footage from a hidden camera was shown, as the guard recorded the actions of “Dmitry” on video.
Smith was later approached by “Irina”; she asked a guard for help as someone had “given information to the British that could harm Russia”. Smith responded by asking what kind of help she needed.
After the arrest, Smith’s house in Potsdam was searched. It turned out that the security guard had scanned copies of a letter to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other documents relating to trade matters. During the search, they also found a flash drive with several photos of embassy employees and diplomatic passports, as well as video recordings from the diplomatic mission building. Prosecutors are confident that Smith collected this and other data for Russia in exchange for money – “significant amounts of cash”; the former guard insists that he did not receive money for information.
Smith is expected to be sentenced later this week.
In April 2022, the former security guard was charged with nine offenses under the British Official Secrets Act. Seven episodes are connected with the collection of information for its transfer to Russia, two more – with an attempt to contact and transfer data to a person associated with it. Smith pleaded guilty to violating the law on state secrets, but his lawyer said that his client had no “negative intentions against the UK.” At the same time, during the investigation, it turned out that Smith stated in conversations that he hated Great Britain and Germany.
