Brothers who googled ‘disappear in Sweden’ were spying for Russia
Two brothers who looked up how to “disappear in Sweden” and “how to delete messages” from their phones were jailed Thursday for spying for Russia’s intelligence service GRU.
The Stockholm district court found 42-year-old Peyman Kia, who served in Sweden’s intelligence service Sapo and in military intelligence units, and his brother Payam, 35, guilty of “gross espionage” in one of Sweden’s most high-profile espionage cases in decades.
The brothers, Swedish citizens of Iranian origin, had “illegally and for the benefit of Russia and the GRU, acquired, transferred and disclosed information whose disclosure to a foreign power could damage Sweden’s security”.
The court found Peyman Kia guilty of collecting some 90 classified documents through its jobs. His brother was found guilty of planning the crime and managing contacts with the GRU and passing on about 45 of the classified documents.
In October 2021, years after Sapo first suspected a mole in its organization and counterintelligence began investigating Peyman Kia, police searched his younger brother’s home.
The searches included “legal fees”
Fearing that the security services were after them, the younger brother began searching the internet on a borrowed computer and made 28 searches including “spy”, “legal fees” and “helicopter searcher”.
The couple was arrested about a month after the search. Both denied the allegations.
Peyman Kia, the older brother, had an impressive career in most fields secret unit of Sweden’s military intelligence service. He used his position to obtain classified information, most of which he was not authorized to handle.
Despite a wealth of evidence including USB sticks, laptops, hard drives and mobile phones, the court admitted there was much it had been unable to establish.
“After studying the evidence, it is clear that some pieces of the puzzle are missing and it has therefore not been possible to determine with certainty what has happened,” they write in a statement.
The court speculated that the brothers may have been motivated by money.
It found Peyman Kia handled cash worth around $50,000 in 2016-2017, which it said was likely payment from Russia for the classified documents.
“Espionage is increasing in Sweden”
Much of the investigation and court hearing, and Thursday’s full court order, was considered classified information and was therefore not made available to the public.
The older brother’s defense lawyer, Anton Strand, said his client “is not satisfied with the verdict and wants to appeal”. The younger brother has not yet decided whether to appeal the sentence.
The trial coincided with another spectacular spy scandal involving a couple of Russian origin who were was arrested last year in a dramatic police helicopter raid on their villa in a Stockholm suburb.
“Espionage is increasing in Sweden,” Henrik Häggström, senior analyst at the Norwegian Defense Academy, told Public Service TV on Thursday.