On July 6, 2014, Zlobina turned 30. It was also the day Marsalek met his GRU handler.

Zlobina was waiting for her beau aboard a dingy Greek-flagged cutter, “Poseidon III,” in the Mediterranean waters off the coast of Nice. Marsalek arrived with a second man, who was carrying his suitcase. Marsalek climbed down a ladder into the vessel and gave Zlobina a perfunctory peck on the cheek. He was clearly angry, which was the point of this vignette, captured on marina security camera footage retrieved by Der Spiegel. The Poseidon III was a ruse, Natasha’s joke, and whether by accident or design, two years later, the Greek god of the ocean would furnish the codename used to refer to Wirecard in a bogus corporate merger scheme with a French merchant technology company, Ingenico. That scheme was designed — and then publicly leaked — to gin up Wirecard’s share prices.

Zlobina’s birthday gift to Marsalek — or maybe to herself — was an introduction aboard the yacht to a man named Stanislav Petlinsky. Zlobina introduced Marsalek to Petlinsky as “Stas, the general from GRU.” At the time, Petlinsky was dating Zlobina’s best friend, and she promised Marsalek that “Stas” would be a terrific addition to his thickening rolodex of influential Russian contacts.

So he would.

In the 90s, Petlinsky had been a supervising officer in the GRU Spetsnaz, or special forces, and fought in Chechnya. He spent that floating evening with Marsalek regaling him with his exploits — particularly as a marksman, as Marsalek expressed an interest in guns. Petlinsky’s exact rank and role in Russian intelligence — hinted at by the man himself to an intimate circle of contacts, either in truth or as provocatively sprinkled bits of disinformation aimed at burnishing his legend — is murky, but Western spy agencies do not doubt that his employer is the Russian state.

Among those Petlinsky has regaled is a reporter from Der Spiegel. That conversation occurred mere weeks ago at the Jumeirah al-Naseem beach resort in Dubai — amid a plentiful selection of champagne, Beluga caviar, and young Russian women.

Petlinsky is found sitting on the terrace overlooking the Persian Gulf. Not far from him is another Russian, Alexander Lebedev, the ex-KGB officer turned oligarch and publishing magnate who controls Britain’s Independent and Evening Standard newspapers. The two clearly know each other and nod a silent greeting.

Trim at 60, dressed in a gray pinstripe, black tee, and mirrored aviator sunglasses, Petlinsky confirms meeting Marsalek aboard the yacht in Nice in July 2014. “You know, I fell in love with him from the first moment,” he said. “He has such a beautiful mind. I always think so small, in dimensions of what’s possible,” he continues, echoing Marsalek’s own animadversions about his own father. “Jan always thinks big, very, very big.” Being chancellor of Germany? Too small for Marsalek. “But uniting China, Russia, and Europe as a counterbalance to the USA, that would interest him.”

Fancy toys and women aren’t Marsalek’s motivation, Petlinsky insists before describing the Austrian’s “beautiful mind” as being “a bit autistic.” While Marsalek’s acquaintances almost universally define him with the word “charisma,” Petlinsky says Marsalek’s weak point is dealing with people. “He lacks empathy,” the Russian spy says without noting that the trait is a telltale sign of the sociopath.

What about Marsalek’s espionage and Petlinsky’s responsibility for it? The Austrian is just playacting, Petlinsky maintains, inhabiting a theatrical role with no real-world legitimacy to it. Marsalek is “obsessed” with spycraft and all its mystique, something others also attest to. As for Petlinsky himself, he swears he’s merely a “security advisor” with a big portfolio in Africa, the kind of man who sometimes meets with Putin and chases down FSB agents. He offers a robust critique of the amateurish nature of the Khangoshvili assassination in Berlin — no small thing given that Putin has recently praised the killer Krasikov as a “patriot” in a much-discussed sit-down interview with Tucker Carlson. Petlinsky admits to introducing Marsalek to a host of colorful characters in Russia. He doesn’t want to talk about which ones were Russian intelligence officers, and he changes the subject.

But to his close circle of friends, Der Spiegel has learned, Petlinsky boasted about handing Marsalek off to the GRU after that first meeting in the South of France in 2014. Friends of Marsalek say the Wirecard fraudster’s life can be divided in two halves: “before Stas” and “after Stas.”

They traveled together, often as a trio, with Zlobina in tow. At one point, Petlinsky even told friends that he relocated his own mother, who suffered from health problems, to a clinic in Munich just to be closer to Marsalek, who built himself his own back office for Wirecard and other pursuits in a villa at Prinzregentenstraße 61, right in the center of the Bavarian capital. Johanna Singer, an employee of Wirecard (name has been changed on her request), recalled meeting Petlinsky at the gourmet Munich restaurant Tantris, where the GRU officer celebrated one of his birthdays with Marsalek, complete with a cake shaped in uncanny resemblance to the Soviet red star. One of the toniest areas of Munich, the high-ceilinged, white-columned digs cost 680,000 euro per year in rent, all paid for, of course, by Wirecard via its manifold holdings. A germaphobe in the mold of Donald Trump (the Wirecard executive somehow unsurprisingly owns a life-sized cut-out of the 45th U.S. President), Marsalek even had a field hospital built in the villa during the pandemic. The back office was conveniently situated directly across from the Russian consulate in Bavaria.

One trip Marsalek, Zlobina, and Petlinsky took was to Tunisia via private jet from Moscow in March 2016. The next month, they returned to Nice, the scene of Marsalek and Petlinsky’s meet-cute recruitment; then it was on to Tel Aviv. Stas pulled plenty of strings, as Russian border records demonstrate: much of his foreign travel is designated as “official visit to a diplomatic mission,” a category typically reserved for Russian Foreign Ministry officials.

Marsalek's Mercenaries

Stas was also a connector.

A proud owner of a Harley Davidson himself, he introduced Marsalek to a heavy-set man fond of Hells Angels attire, whom Petlinsky referred to as “Vladimir, my mercenary.” Vladimir’s actual name is Anatoliy Karaziy. Like Petlinsky, Karaziy is a former GRU Spetsnaz officer, and the two are thought to have served together in Chechnya. At the very least, the mercenary part of the story proved true, as Karaziy belonged to a guns-for-hire outfit that gained in infamy after its debut on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine in 2014. It was called the Wagner Group, and it was founded by catering magnate and ex-con Yevgeny Prigozhin, a personal friend of Putin’s from their native St. Petersburg.