Fugitive Wirecard chief claims he toppled Austria's Chancellor Kurz

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Jan Marsalek, the fugitive former Wirecard executive suspected by multiple countries of spying for Russia, claimed that he had helped to bring down Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, according to documents obtained by the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, of which POLITICO is part of.

Marsalek said he had been involved in an operation that had “successfully toppled” Kurz, who stepped down amid corruption allegations in 2021.

The messages, detailed in investigation files seen by the Telegraph and the Global Reporters Network, were sent to Orlin Roussev, a spy-ring leader who received instructions from Marsalek and has since been jailed in Britain for espionage. The documents contain no independent evidence of the role Marsalek says he has played in Kurz’s downfall.

If substantiated, Marsalek’s claims would be a clear indicator of the Russian state interfering directly in the political leadership of an EU country. The Kremlin has long sought to sow division and destabilize governments across Europe, according to assessments by multiple security agencies.

Marsalek is one of the world’s most wanted men and has been on the run since June 2020 when his company, German tech giant Wirecard, collapsed with a €1.9 billion hole in its books.

Since his escape, he has been accused of working for the Kremlin for more than a decade while British police say he is involved in espionage on an “industrial” scale. He is wanted for fraud and is being investigated for spying in several European countries, including his native Austria.

Kurz was the world’s youngest leader when he first became chancellor of Austria in 2017 at the age of 31. But his stratospheric rise, which saw him hold the post twice, was marred by corruption allegations, including that public money was used for political advertising on his behalf.

When members of Marsalek’s spy ring, led by Roussev, were arrested in the U.K., police seized hundreds of thousands of messages detailing operations plotted from British soil.

Some of these messages were shared with authorities, including Austrian officials, who are currently investigating whether their spies provided information to Marsalek and, in turn, to Russia.

‘Messy story’

One of the investigative files, examined by the Global Reporters Network, contains messages sent by a man whom authorities have identified as Marsalek, using the alias “Rupert Ticz,” on October 22, 2021.

Marsalek mentions a “guy” who “was actually working for us for a while,” adding: “now he’s the victim of a witch-hunt by the team of the former chancellor.”

He goes on to say that “we’ve successfully toppled” the former chancellor “by confiscating the mobile phone” of a friend of the then chancellor, who, according to Marsalek, was managing his “secret campaign financing.”

Marsalek then shared a link to an article about the corruption allegations against Kurz and the phone which had been seized from one of the leader’s closest associates, Thomas Schmid, a former senior official in Austria’s Finance Ministry.

Schmid’s phone had been seized in November 2019. The extensive communications recovered from the device subsequently became important evidence in several corruption investigations.

In October 2021, prosecutors carried out raids involving Kurz’s government and his political party, the ÖVP, over allegations concerning the misuse of public money for politically favorable opinion polls and media coverage.

Pressure from the investigation led to Kurz announcing that he was stepping down. Two weeks later, Marsalek wrote to Roussev that it was “quite a messy story”.

Later in the conversation, he referred again to the political consequences of the information recovered from the phone, saying: “And the rest of the chats ‘killed’ the chancellor.”

The documents contain no independent evidence that Marsalek actually organized the seizure of the phone.

Russian ties

Marsalek’s links to Austria’s former domestic intelligence service, the BVT, have been investigated extensively and a number of senior spies and police officers are accused of handing him information for use by the Russian state.

The messages between Marsalek and Roussev are contained in Austrian police files investigating “support for a foreign intelligence service – interference in Austrian politics.” The documents also refer to possible offenses relating to elections, breaches of official duties and corruption.

An assessment of the messages by investigators notes that “Marsalek stated unequivocally that ‘they’ had ‘toppled’ the chancellor in a successful operation.”

“Marsalek thus admitted to Roussev that he had been involved in the confiscation of this mobile phone,” the report continues

The investigators therefore interpreted the conversation as Marsalek claiming involvement in the seizure of a phone that had contributed to the chancellor’s downfall.

The same assessment notes that it remained unclear whether Marsalek’s reference to “the guy” who had worked “for us” meant Wirecard or a Russian intelligence service.

Kurz declined to comment on the messages or the investigators’ assessment.

At the time the messages were sent, Marsalek was living in Moscow and carrying out work primarily for Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), British prosecutors have said.

Roussev was one of a number of Bulgarians arrested in the UK on suspicion of spying on behalf of Russia. They were later convicted and Roussev was jailed for ten years and eight months.

The group organized surveillance operations targeting Kremlin opponents and investigative journalists and discussed kidnapping as well as planning disinformation campaigns.

The network also had access to sensitive Austrian government information. In May 2025, The Telegraph revealed that three mobile phones belonging to senior Austrian Interior Ministry officials had ended up in Russia.

These were different phones from Thomas Schmid’s device, which Austrian investigators seized in November 2019. No connection between the two incidents has been established.

Kurz’s downfall

The reference to a confiscated phone concerns one of the most important pieces of evidence in Austrian political corruption investigations of recent years.

Schmid was a senior figure in the Finance Ministry and a close associate of Sebastian Kurz. He later became head of the state-owned holding company ÖBAG.

His mobile phone was seized by Austrian investigators on November 12, 2019, and police recovered extensive communications, including messages that had previously been deleted.

Those messages later became part of several corruption investigations concerning political appointments, government advertising and allegations about the use of public money for party-political purposes.

On October 6, 2021, Austrian prosecutors searched the Federal Chancellery, the Finance Ministry and the headquarters of Kurz’s Austrian People’s Party.

The searches were part of an investigation into allegations that taxpayer money had been used to finance politically favorable opinion polls and media coverage.

The investigations led to Kurz announcing his resignation as chancellor on October 9, 2021.

Marsalek’s message to Roussev was written 13 days later, nearly two years after Schmid’s telephone was seized.

By then, details of the case including reports about thousands of intimate photographs on Schmid’s phone, which Marsalek joked about, had already appeared in the local press.

Marsalek has been out of reach of European authorities for years, and the Global Reporters Network was also unable to contact him for comment.

“The Russian secret services like causing havoc and chaos and disruption,” Ed Arnold, senior associate fellow at Royal United Services Institute think tank, told the Global Reporters Network. “But even if they don’t cause it, they are more than happy to exploit it and make political disagreements or fissures worse.”

He said Marsalek might have been “overplaying his hand” by emphasizing his role in the downfall of Kurz, adding: “If you want to make a name for yourself in this world as some kind of fixer, you need some kudos.”

“Russia wants to destabilize our free democracies,” Manfred Weber, the German leader of the EPP in the European Parliament, told POLITICO. “It must be unequivocally ruled out that Russian intelligence services can interfere in democratic and judicial processes … These events must be thoroughly investigated.”

A spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of the Interior said that they could not comment on ongoing investigations into Marsalek’s network.

The spokesperson told the Global Reporters Network that the “Austrian Criminal Intelligence Service does not provide information or comment on ongoing investigations or proceedings, nor does it disclose information concerning specific individuals”.

The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network harnesses the resources of the company’s newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet, The Telegraph, and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms: online, print, TV and audio.