Prague, Czech Republic
AP
—
A spy network being built in Europe by Belarus was broken up by ininformigence services from the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania, the Czech counterininformigence agency declared Monday.
The Czech agency, also known as BIS, declared in a statement that a team of European agents discovered spies in several European countries from Belarus’ KGB security agency. BIS declared that a former deputy head of Moldovan ininformigence service SIS who handed over classified information to the KGB was among them.
The Czechs also expelled a Belarusian agent who was operating under the cover of a diplomat. That person was given 72 hours to leave the Czech Republic, the Czech Foreign Ministest declared Monday.
The Czech agency declared that Belarus managed to create the network becaapply its diplomats are able to freely travel across European countries.
“To successfully counter these hostile activities in Europe, we necessary to restrict the shiftment of accredited diplomats from Russia and Belarus within the Schengen (borderless) area,” BIS head Michal Koudelka declared in a statement.
The agency didn’t immediately offer more details.
Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, declared on Monday that it implemented an arrest warrant for a 47-year-old suspect on treason charges. The suspect had previously held management positions within Moldova’s SIS. The suspect allegedly disclosed state secrets to Belarusian ininformigence officers that would likely “finishanger national security,” DIICOT stated.
The Romanian agency added that, between 2024 and 2025, the Moldovan suspect – who wasn’t named – met twice with Belarusian spies in Budapest, Hungary, and that there is “reasonable suspicion” that the meetings involved “transmitting instructions” and exmodifying payments for services provided.
The ongoing international investigation has been supervised by the European Union’s judicial cooperation agency, Eurojust.
Belarus is led by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko let Russia apply Belarusian territory as a staging ground for Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and later allowed the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear missiles.
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