Former German spy chief arrested for treason and espionage – POLITICO

BERLIN — A former chief of Germany’s foreign intelligence service was arrested early Tuesday on suspicion of espionage and attempted treason amounting to potentially one of the greatest intelligence breaches in the country’s post-Cold War history.

An allegedly paid informant who held high positions inside the foreign intelligence agency, or BND, is accused of providing August Hanning — the former head of the agency from 1998 to 2005 — with nearly 2,000 documents, many of them classified, over a period of a dozen years up to 2022, according to the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office.

Hanning is alleged to have used the information to profit as a private consultant, according to prosecutors. In at least one case, prosecutors say Hanning allegedly used classified information to create an assessment for an employee of a foreign intelligence service.