Germany detains alleged Russian spy at UK embassy in Berlin

German prosecutors said Wednesday they have detained a British citizen who is accused of spying for Russia while working at the British Embassy in Berlin.

Federal prosecutors said in a statement that the man was detained on Tuesday in Potsdam based on cooperative investigations by German and British authorities. In keeping with German privacy laws, he was only identified as Davis S.

Prosecutors said he is suspected of having spied for the Russian intelligence service at least since November. Before his arrest, he worked as a local hire at the British Embassy in the German capital and allegedly passed on documents he received at work to the Russians, the prosecutors' statement said.

He received an unknown amount of cash in return, the prosecutor's statement said. Investigators have searched his home and office, the statement said.

During the Cold War, Berlin was often dubbed as “the capital of spies” because the city was on the frontlines of the confrontation between the Soviets in the East and the Americans and their western allies in the West. Intelligence agents were active on both sides of the divided city and sometimes — after some espionage agents were caught — there were infamous cloak-and-dagger exchanges of captured spies on the Glienicker Bridge.

However, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the unification of Germany a year later, and the end of the Cold War, espionage activities in Berlin have supposedly abated.