BUCHAREST, PRAGUE – Czechia’s BIS intelligence service, along with counterintelligence officials in Romania and Hungary, announced on Monday that a Belarusian espionage network operating across Europe had been dismantled.
According to BIS, the Belarusian foreign intelligence agency, the KGB, had sought to recruit agents and obtain sensitive information. A joint European team – supported by Eurojust and involving Romania, Hungary, Czechia, and Moldova – uncovered KGB officers and collaborators in several countries. Among them was a former deputy head of Moldova’s intelligence service (SIS), Alexandru Bălan, who allegedly passed classified information to the KGB.
Romanian prosecutors announced Bălan’s arrest on suspicion of treason for passing on Romanian state secrets beginning in 2024 and continuing through the present. Bălan allegedly organised two meetings in Budapest with Belarusian intelligence officers, where he is suspected of providing instructions and receiving payments for his services.
The Moldovan Intelligence and Security Service confirmed Bălan’s detention, according to the Moldovan press agency IPN.
The Czech foreign ministry, meanwhile, expelled an alleged Belarusian intelligence officer who had been active in Prague under diplomatic cover.
Czech counterintelligence officials argued that the network thrived in part because its operatives could move freely around Europe. As BIS Director Michael Koudelka said: “To successfully counter these hostile activities in Europe, we need to restrict the movement of accredited diplomats from Russia and Belarus within the Schengen area.”
Czech Foreign MInister Jan Lipavský sounded a similar note: “Agents covered by diplomatic privileges must not have free rein across Europe. I will continue to push at the European level for the relevant restrictions, primarily against Russian diplomats.”
