Russian man, 55, charged with foreign intelligence work after rail photography

Detention during a football match security operation

Police detained the 55-year-old Russian citizen in Świdnica, Lower Silesia, during operations securing a football match in the town. Officers noticed a Volkswagen passenger car parked at an unguarded railway level crossing, with a man inside who drove away as soon as he saw the uniformed officers. Following the same direction, the patrol spotted the same vehicle again near a railway viaduct, where a man standing beside it grew nervous and tried to hurry back to the car. During the intervention, officers found professional photographic equipment on him, which he had used to photograph trains and railway infrastructure.

Timeline of the case

The sequence began with the officers' observation at the level crossing and ended with the detention and the charge. The chart below sets out the sequence of steps the police described.

The man was detained first and then charged, according to the police account. He was charged under Article 130 § 1 of the Penal Code. Police said he photographed railway and transport infrastructure as well as production facilities with the intention of passing the images to a foreign intelligence service.

Seized equipment and the scale of the material

Officers seized electronic and photographic equipment, mobile phones, laptops, large-capacity portable and external drives, and several identity documents. Analysis of the storage media revealed hundreds of thousands of files on similar subjects. According to the police, these files documented various places and important transport facilities, not only in Poland. The police described the collection as a photographic archive of rail and transport sites rather than a small set of images.

Custody and the investigation

The suspect will spend the next three months in custody, police said. The Lower Silesian police announced the case in a post, crediting close cooperation between the prosecutor's office in Świdnica and the Wrocław branch of the CBZC. The reports available describe the detention, the charge and the seized devices, but they do not give further details about what the images were used for. The next stage of the case will depend on the prosecutor's office handling the material seized from the suspect.