Spies behind bars: Spying for Russia: Australian couple arrested

Two Australian citizens of Russian origin have been arrested in Australia on espionage charges. The couple, aged 40 and 62, are accused of obtaining material from the Australian armed forces in order to pass it on to the Russian authorities, the Australian National Police said. The wife is a soldier in the Australian armed forces.

The suspects were taken from their home in a suburb of Brisbane on Thursday. The Australian authorities accuse them of preparing an espionage offence, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Unmasking the couple was a complex operation by a special task force of the police and intelligence service (ASIO), said Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw.

Soldier secretly traveled to Russia

The woman is said to have secretly traveled to Russia during a vacation and from there instructed her husband to access her work emails and send her certain information to her private email account. The login information for the army account was used several times to access confidential information “with the intention of making it available to the Russian authorities,” it said. Whether the information reached them is still being investigated.

“Espionage is an insidious crime,” said Kershaw. At a time of global instability, there are increased efforts to obtain information from Western democracies, including Australia. ASIO Director General Mike Burgess stressed that several countries are trying to steal Australia’s secrets. “Espionage damages our economy and reduces our strategic advantage. It can have catastrophic consequences in the real world.”