Georgia’s State Security Service (SSG) has announced the detention of a public official on charges of espionage for an unspecified foreign country. Pro-government media reported that the detainee is Giorgi Udzilauri — a now-former employee of the Finance Ministry with a background at the Cartu Group, a conglomerate established by the ruling Georgian Dream party’s billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili.
According to the SSG’s statement on Tuesday, the detained individual held a ‘senior position’ in an unnamed state agency and, ‘against the interests of the country’, was systematically collecting and passing information to a foreign intelligence service.
‘The transferred information included various categories of classified data related to ongoing political and economic processes in Georgia, the situation within law enforcement and security structures, information concerning ethnic and religious minorities, as well as other data of interest to the clients of the information transfer’, the statement read.
Shortly afterwards, pro-government TV channel Rustavi 2 reported that the detainee is Udzilauri, who most recently headed one of the departments of the Finance Ministry’s Investigative Service. According to local media, Udzilauri headed the public relations department of Ivanishvili’s conglomerate, Cartu Group, in 2016–2017.
At the same time, Rustavi 2, along with another pro-government TV channel Imedi, reported that the detainee was spying in favour of ‘one of the European states’.
The SSG only confirmed to OC Media the detainee’s name as Giorgi Udzilauri. The agency did not comment on other details, including pro-government media’s references to a ‘European state’.
Udzilauri was officially charged on Wednesday.
As a critic of the formerly ruling United National Movement (UNM) and a supporter of Georgian Dream, Udzilauri appeared on TV programmes on multiple occasions in the past. In recent years, however, he has maintained a lower public profile, with his last visible Facebook post — in which he criticised one of the UNM’s electoral candidates — dating back to 2017.
Nevertheless, material from 2021 can still be found online, showing him as a guest on the pro-government POSTV, on a programme hosted by ruling party propagandist Shalva Ramishvili.
Udzilauri faces long prison sentence
According to the SSG, the detainee maintained ‘highly organised, conspiratorial and systematic contacts’ with a representative of a foreign intelligence service.
‘Meetings were arranged using encrypted two-way communication and were held in different locations under strictly pre-agreed conditions of conspiracy. The transfer of information was carried out both through face-to-face contact and electronic means’, the statement said.
The SSG also added that during the alleged criminal activity, the detainee used his pre-detention official position, as well as previously held posts and personal connections within various state institutions.
The agency added that the detainee was also involved in the creation of ‘information platforms’, the purpose of which was to ‘attract’ media representatives and, through this channel, obtain intelligence-type information, including in relation to ‘countries of the region’.
If found guilty, Udzilauri faces eight to 12 in prison.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
Over the last two weeks, the SSG announced two other detentions related to alleged espionage.
On 25 April, the agency said it had detained its former employee and a current employee of the Interior Ministry on charges of ‘removing classified information from the SSG’.
Earlier, on 22 April, the agency reported a Georgian citizen had been detained for collecting and passing information on the instructions of foreign intelligence services.
In none of the statements did the agency specify which country the detainees were accused of spying for; however, pro-government media reported that the 22 April detention was related to Russia.
