London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

Berlin embassy arrest: A case of old-school spying?

Berlin embassy arrest: A case of old-school spying?

The arrest of a security guard at the British Embassy in Berlin is a reminder that old-fashioned spying has not gone out of fashion.

Stories of betrayal, bribes and stolen documents make for racy tales with all the elements of spy fiction.

But the truth is that nothing in the Berlin case should surprise us. What is alleged to have happened is not very unusual, even if we do not hear about it very often.

In recent years, Western states have called out Russia for the aggressive actions of its intelligence services - for instance the GRU, Russian military intelligence, using nerve agent in Salisbury or blowing up an arms depot in the Czech Republic, both actions killing innocent people.

But you will not hear the same complaints when it comes to the allegation involving the British Embassy in Berlin.

That is because if it turns out to be true, following the legal process, then it would be business as usual when it comes to more traditional spying.

And also, although they may not like to admit it, because it is exactly the kind of thing that Britain's MI6 and America's CIA regularly do in Russia as well as other countries.

If the authorities' suspicions are correct, the methods and targets in this case were decidedly old school.

Cyber-spying, stealing secrets remotely, has certainly become more dominant since the arrival of the internet. There was a fear in MI6 in the 1990s that they would be put out of business thanks to what could be done online.

But the reality is that people still count in the spy world. People hear things that are not always put down online. They can provide access to places and other people and answer questions that documents cannot.

Spies carefully assess people who might have access to useful information and look for some weakness they can exploit.

A UK national who works at the British embassy in Berlin was arrested earlier this week

Decades ago, the Soviet Union could rely on communist ideology to recruit people in the West but in recent years it has more usually been people motivated by cash, often overlaid with some kind of grievance or disaffection with their life or work and more rarely a sympathy with Russia.

Germany may not be the Cold War crossroads divided between East and West as it once was, but it is the economic and diplomatic powerhouse of Europe and clearly a top priority for spies with a number of recent cases there involving China as well as Russia.

The apparent specific target in Berlin was also hardly unusual. Embassies are full of interesting plans and people - for instance what negotiations are taking place over sanctions against Russia or what kind of intelligence co-operation is taking place against Russian targets.

Because they are a prime target, security measures in embassies can be intensive. Diplomats are carefully vetted and intelligence officers will work out of secure "bubbles" to make it harder for microphones to be drilled through walls to eavesdrop on conversations.

Locally hired staff - ranging from security guards, as alleged in this case, to cleaners - are subject to some security checks but they are not as intense as those for diplomats. Everyone knows there is a potential risk of them being subverted by money or some other inducement to provide information or access.

That means in Moscow, CIA officers have had to try to maintain their cover that they were "just" diplomats - even inside their own embassy compound - for fear of giving themselves away.

Spying does happen all the time, but what is fairly rare is for cases to be made public or go to trial. One reason is that the origins of the investigation are often secret - it may be that there is a spy within Russian intelligence tipping off the Brits or the Germans, but they need to be protected. Or there could have been some compromise of their communications or the way they operate - likewise, the spy-catchers would not want that to become public, so they can continue to exploit their advantage.

Bringing evidence into court can also be tricky. British security officials have recently been arguing that one of the reasons so few cases make it to court in the UK is that current Officials Secrets Act legislation is so out of date. Often in the past when a person was suspected to be working for Moscow, they would be confronted in the hope of extracting a confession, as happened with MI6 officer George Blake, or sometimes they would be offered a deal in order to avoid a trial which might be embarrassing, as happened with another MI6 officer, Kim Philby.

But even though few cases make it into the newspapers or into court, don't let that fool you into thinking that this kind of spying is not going on all the time, just below the surface and usually out of sight.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×