Fears spy called 'The Spaniard' may have betrayed British and U.S. secrets to Russia for more than a decade



Known as 'The Spaniard' because he is said to have posed as a Spanish businessman, it is feared that Herman Simm betrayed Britain and the U.S. for more than a decade

A high-ranking spy known as 'The Spaniard' operating at the heart of Nato is feared to have betrayed British and US secrets to Russian intelligence for more than a decade, it has emerged.



In an echo of the Cold War, Herman Simm is believed to have operated with his wife and is suspected of passing highly sensitive information to Moscow, including details of the controversial US missile shield, its cyber defence programme and Nato operations from Kosovo to Afghanistan.

An Estonian recruited by the KGB when his country was still part of the Soviet empire, Simm, 61, was described as a 'Russian mole' who was responsible for handling all his country's classified and top secret material on Nato.

British and U.S. investigators are said to have flown to the Estonian capital Tallinn in a bid to discover how much intelligence has been compromised.

Experts fear it will become the biggest spy scandal since CIA man Aldrich Ames, a counter intelligence expert, was caught selling secrets to Moscow in the early 1990s.

Simm was arrested in September after making a series of mistakes and investigators are seeking to establish whether he was operating with other Estonian officials.

Amazingly in the modern day, he still used a converted radio transmitter to set up meetings with his contact, apparently posing as a Spanish businessman - leading to his nickname 'The Spaniard.'

As in the Cold War years, the operation appears to have been a husband and wife team.

Simm's wife, Heete, who once worked as a lawyer at the national police headquarters, has been detained on charges of being an accessory to treason.

Investigators believe Simm was a 'sleeper' for the Russian intelligence service from the end of the 1980s when the KGB still existed and Estonia was part of the USSR.

At that time, Estonia was already striving for independence, and it was apparent that Moscow would lose the Baltic states but still wished to secure influence in the country.

Simm, once Estonia's chief of police and a department head at the country's Defence Ministry, where he was responsible for secret co-ordination with Nato and the EU, amassed a considerable fortune for selling military secrets, it is understood.

An investigator described him as 'a big fish,' adding: 'He gave Russia practically everything Nato and the EU passed between them.'

A German government official described the leaks as a 'catastrophe,' and Estonian politician Jaanus Rahumaegi said he feared Simm's betrayal could cause 'historic damage'.

Simm is only believed to have been caught because of blunders that have dogged modern espionage ever since the KGB first pitted itself against the West.

He attracted suspicion when bought up several pieces of valuable land and houses, including a farmhouse on the Baltic Sea and a grand white-painted villa outside Tallinn.

These failings were compounded when his contact officer became careless and tried to recruit a second agent – who reported the incident to the security authorities.

Estonian mole-hunters began to reconstruct the movements of the supposed Spaniard and followed the thread back to the agent inside Nato.

Simm had headed government delegations in bilateral talks on protecting secret data flow. And he was an important player in devising EU and Nato information protection systems.

Simm is likely to be formally arraigned at the beginning of next year after the damage control teams from Nato have completed their work. If found guilty he could face between three and 15 years in prison.

Neither the Simms, nor their defence lawyer, have commented on the charges.

Nato too has refused to say anything.



But there is no doubting that the case is a serious embarrassment. Russia may have lost an agent – 'a gold card operative' according to one Estonian newspaper – but it has achieved a tactical victory by sowing suspicion between western Nato members and the new east and central European entrants.

