One of the globe’s most hunted fugitives has been caught on camera enjoying a walk in Moscow with his partner. Jan Marsalek, 45, the former Wirecard executive who has evaded Interpol for five years, is now deeply tied to Vladimir Putin’s FSB and GRU intelligence agencies.
Infamous for orchestrating a Russian spy network in the UK, Marsalek now sports a beard and a hair transplant in the new photo, where he is seen strolling hand in hand with his 41-year-old partner, Tatiana Spiridonova — a slim, red-haired Russian operative. Before Spiridonova, his lover and recruiter was another spy, ex-erotic model Natalia Zlobina, 41, often dubbed the “naked spy.”
Fresh revelations about Marsalek’s double life in Moscow have surfaced in a joint investigation by independent Russian outlet The Insider and German magazine Der Spiegel. “From an unremarkable three-storey house in Stremyanny Lane comes a couple,” reported the journalists. Meanwhile, the US has unveiled a terrifying $776 million B-21 Raider nuclear bomber, coming as a warning to Putin.
“They hold hands and chat casually, attracting no attention.
“Yet they should, because this man is Jan Marsalek, one of the world’s most wanted criminals, a former top manager of German tech giant Wirecard, recruited by Russian intelligence and on the run in Moscow after a £1.6 billion hole was found in his company’s accounts.”
His partnership with Spiridonova is “not only romantic but also professional.” She is “privy to many of Marsalek’s operations and even took part in them.”
The fugitive uses numerous fake identities, even posing as an Orthodox priest. One alter ego is “Alexander Nelidov,” a man supposedly born in Riga in 1978 but who never existed.
On 28 December 2024, reporters tracked him traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg under the name Alexander Schmidt. He is thought to possess more than eight passports.
Marsalek has repeatedly entered war zones in Ukraine, visited Crimea at least five times, and kept an office near the FSB’s infamous Lubyanka base. Phone records suggest he travels by Moscow metro to the site almost every day.
The “billionaire fraudster’s” most infamous scheme involved Bulgarian spies operating in Britain, jailed this year for over 50 years in total.
For nearly three years, the cell leaked intelligence to Russia, targeting Kremlin critics, reporters, and Ukrainian soldiers training at a US air base.
The ringleader, Orlin Roussev, 46, managed the group from a guesthouse in Great Yarmouth. Journalists Christo Grozev and Roman Dobrokhotov — authors of the latest Insider exposé — were marked for kidnapping by Marsalek’s network, though MI5 foiled the attempt.
While Austrian-born Marsalek is still free, three associates — beautician Vanya Gaberova, 30, decorator Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, and lab worker Katrin Ivanova, 33 — were convicted of spying for Russia.
Meanwhile, Roussev, 46, along with Biser Dzhambazov, 43, and Ivan Stoyanov, 32, admitted guilt under Britain’s Official Secrets Act.
Marsalek, Wirecard’s former chief operations officer, fled to Russia in 2020 but is suspected of traveling abroad since, including to Dubai. He remains wanted across Europe, including by the UK.
His ex-lover Zlobina, born in Uzbekistan, is both an actress and a onetime erotic model. She appeared in the 1996 American-Russian B-movie Red Lips 2: Bloodlust as a spy who murdered targets with nerve gas. She reportedly brought Marsalek into Moscow’s business and intelligence circles, recruiting him during a yacht meeting.
