Fugitive Wirecard executive Marsalek claims he toppled Kurz

Jan Marsalek, the fugitive former Wirecard executive, has claimed he was involved in an operation that "successfully toppled" Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz in 2021, in messages sent to a convicted Russian spy.

The claim appears in documents obtained by the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, of which POLITICO is part. The messages are detailed in investigation files seen by the Telegraph and the Global Reporters Network.

However, the documents contain no independent evidence supporting Marsalek's claim.

In the messages, Marsalek said he had been involved in an operation that had "successfully toppled" Kurz. They were sent to Orlin Roussev, a spy-ring leader who has since been jailed in Britain for espionage.

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

Since his escape, he has been accused of working for the Kremlin for more than a decade. 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. He held the post twice, but his rise 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 UK, 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.

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 22 October 2021.

Marsalek mentions a "guy" who "was actually working for us for a while," adding that he was now "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 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 OVP, over allegations concerning the misuse of public money for politically favourable 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 organised the seizure of the phone.

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 offences 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."

The assessment continues: "Marsalek thus admitted to Roussev that he had been involved in the confiscation of this mobile phone." 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 organised 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.