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Former German intelligence head arrested on suspicion of espionage had traveled to Russia at least seven times
Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office has reported the arrest of August Hanning, the former president of the country’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), on suspicion of espionage and treason. Along with Hanning, the agency detained Manfred D., the former head of his office.
Hanning headed the BND from December 1998 to November 2005. According to prosecutors, in 2010 Hanning made an arrangement with Manfred D. to receive information from the BND in exchange for payment.
Hanning intended to use the documents he received in his private consulting business. From 2010 to 2022, he obtained approximately 2,000 documents this way, many of them classified.
These materials were intended solely for the BND’s internal use and included, among other things, data from situational briefings. According to information from the German outlets Süddeutsche Zeitung, NDR, and WDR, the documents included materials from foreign partner agencies, documents on Iran’s nuclear program, and documents on the Russian military.
In at least one instance, Hanning is known to have prepared a security report for an unnamed foreign intelligence service (not a Russian one, according to media reports).
Meanwhile, after leaving the BND, Hanning made at least seven trips to Russia, The Insider found — all of them within the period from 2015 to 2019.
Often, Hanning would fly into Moscow in the evening and fly out the next day. In the summer of 2016 he flew from Munich to Moscow on the evening of July 6 and flew out to Berlin on the afternoon of July 7. A similar trip between Berlin and Moscow took place in May 2019.
The investigation into Hanning has continued for several months. He came to the attention of law enforcement last year in connection with his possible involvement in the abduction of the children of Hamburg businesswoman Christina Block. As part of that case, Hanning’s home was searched in September 2025; some of the BND documents were found during those searches.