The unnamed man, who worked at a state military enterprise, was arrested in Moscow as he downloaded classified information onto a sophisticated mini-computer hidden in a fake rock by British intelligence agents.
His cover was blown after MI6 agents were tailed for weeks by officers from the Federal Security Bureau (FSB), the former KGB. They led the FSB first to the rock and then to the Russian, who was repeatedly filmed acting suspiciously as he passed by with his dog.
“He was caught red-handed and confessed to selling secrets,” said the source. “The information he passed to his British handlers is being carefully studied so that we can assess how sensitive it is. Investigators will then evaluate the damage he inflicted on the Russian state. He could end up in jail for as long as 20 years.”
Last night the Foreign Office in London was investigating reports that two spies working for British intelligence had been arrested. It was unclear whether they included the state military enterprise employee.
The scandal broke last week when Russian state television broadcast footage shot surreptitiously by the FSB. It showed four suspected British agents apparently downloading information from the rock.
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The FSB claimed it had decided to blow their cover after an unofficial complaint to MI6 was rebuffed. But the timing of the controversy suggests ulterior motives.
Officials emphasised that Marc Doe, a second secretary in the British embassy’s political section who was caught on camera, had signed payments totalling more than £300,000 to 12 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working to improve human rights and promote a civil society in Russia.
The FSB said the payments proved that foreign intelligence services were paying the groups to stir up opposition to the Kremlin. President Vladimir Putin seized on the spying scandal to defend legislation he signed this month that is expected to restrict the work of NGOs.
“It has now become clear to many why Russia passed a law regulating NGO activities . . . I think we have a right to say that the money in this case stinks,” Putin said of Doe’s payments.
Putin, who spent 16 years in the KGB, also said he was undecided about whether to expel the British men. Four British diplomats accused of running a spy ring were sent home in 1996.
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“If we send them away, more will come. Maybe clever ones will come. And we will have to struggle to find them,” Putin explained.
The FSB has failed to prove that the payments signed by Doe were anything other than transparent bank transfers of Foreign Office funds intended to benefit Russian society.
However, it has claimed that Doe approached some NGOs without introducing himself as a diplomat. The FSB says the simple fact that an apparent MI6 agent was making the payments is proof of an intelligence plot. Officials claim some of the money may have been used to finance a series of prison protests last year.
Russian intelligence had been monitoring Doe’s movements since late 2004 after receiving information that the 27-year-old Durham University graduate — who speaks fluent Russian and spent time in Siberia as a student — was an agent.
They say that last September they saw him place a fake rock on a small patch of grass by the side of a road, a few yards from a petrol station.
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“At first we thought it was to be used as a container to hide information, a classic dead letter box,” said one of the Russian agents who tailed Doe.
“But then we picked it up and realised that it was full. We took an x-ray and discovered it had electronic equipment inside and that it sent out a signal. So we put the rock back and placed a hidden camera close to it.”
Measuring no more than 11in by 15in and weighing less than 7lb, the rock looked innocuous when I held it last week in an office decorated with a Putin portrait inside the Lubyanka, the infamous secret police headquarters in Moscow.
But Russian intelligence experts estimate that it cost MI6 several million pounds to develop the sophisticated technology inside.
As I turned it upside down, I saw that hidden behind a lid and a layer of Perspex was an electronic receiver no larger than an iPod. It was fixed over four batteries with an estimated lifespan of up to three months.
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According to sources in the Lubyanka, the rock is strong enough to withstand a fall from a building nine storeys high and was designed to work for long periods under water.
“It’s impressive technology,” said one FSB agent. “The beauty of it is that it enables information to be downloaded without being intercepted because the range of the signal is no more than 25 metres and it works in two-second spurts.
“The agent walks up to it. Once in range, his mini data computer connects with the one in the rock. They synchronise and exchange information. It’s a high-tech gadget. Less impressive was the agents’ field work.”
Over a period of two months, FSB surveillance cameras placed at the secret spot caught Doe and three other British embassy staff now alleged to be MI6 agents — Paul Crompton, officially the third secretary in charge of political affairs, and Chris Pirt and Andrew Fleming, both embassy researchers without diplomatic status.
Also filmed was the alleged Russian agent, recruited by MI6 during a trip abroad, the FSB said. It is claimed that on a second trip he was told the location of the rock and supplied with the electronic equipment needed to connect to it.
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Crompton, who was filmed apparently downloading information from the rock while changing the oil of his embassy car at the petrol station nearby, was already known by the FSB as MI6’s deputy representative in Russia, a post the Russians say is not normally used for covert operations.
Pirt and Fleming are not thought to have been known to the FSB until they walked up to the rock. From then on they were followed.
“Their behaviour as they approached the rock, especially the fact that their eyes darted furiously, made it pretty obvious that they were up to no good,” said one FSB officer reviewing the footage.
One of the researchers was filmed urinating as he struggled to connect his data transmitter to the one inside the rock.
Unable to download the secret material, he walked around the rock for 20 minutes. At one point he took out his mini computer and pointed it at the rock like a television remote control. He then prodded the snow- covered rock with his foot, presumably to check that it was not a real one.
A few days later the camera was recording as Doe, wearing jeans and a woolly hat and carrying a rucksack, removed the malfunctioning rock. After arresting the Russian at the site, the FSB recovered a second fake rock it had found in another part of Moscow while tailing the British men.
“That is when we summoned the senior MI6 representative in Russia to the Lubyanka for a private chat,” another FSB agent said. “We told him we knew what was going on and that this had to stop. He refused to comment and all but stormed out.
“So we decided to leak the story showing that the British had been busted. They were acting too shamelessly. We had to put a stop to it.”