&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Former German spy chief August Hanning arrested on espionage charges")
Police have arrested the Former German spy chief, August Hanning, on suspicion of espionage, treason and obtaining classified information for a foreign power, the German Federal Prosecutor's Office announced on Tuesday. Prosecutors did not identify which foreign intelligence service he was preparing the analysis for, and it was not immediately clear whether the analysis reached its intended recipient.
He was arrested at his home in Nordwalde near Münster, while his chief of staff Manfred D was arrested in Bavaria. Mandred will appear in court on Tuesday while Hanning will appear in court on Wednesday.
Hanning served as the head of Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency from 1998 to 2005. Before moving to the Federal Interior Ministry, where he worked as state secretary until November 2009. Following this, he worked as a private consultant. Manfred D, who was chief of staff under Hanning, retained his position under Hanning's successors. He used to provide hundreds of classified documents to Hanning; after his tenure as spy chief ended, in exchange for payment.
How did the German prosecutor unravel Hanning's secret world?
The allegations against Hanning surfaced in another related development of a high-profile child-abduction trial involving businesswoman Christine Block. She paid Hanning's firm and his partner, ex-Israeli operatives, a €100,000 fee to spy on her ex-husband and find a way to retrieve her children. In September 2025, police raided Hanning's private residence and the offices of System 360, where they found roughly 2000 documents. The investigation was launched after the discovery of this intelligence report leak intended for the chancellery, Bild newspaper reported. Both suspects are believed to have agreed, in the spring of 2010, that Manfred D would continuously transfer valuable intelligence from the BND to Hanning "in exchange for remuneration".
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"The current findings suggest that, over the years, Manfred D provided Hanning with approximately 2,000 documents, many of which contained classified information to be used exclusively by the Federal Intelligence Service for internal purposes," read the statement from the German Federal Prosecutor's Office. Hanning is also accused of being "in close contact with a representative of another foreign intelligence service, to whom he passed on political information, partially based on material provided by Manfred D, for several years".
