A lawsuit over custody rights of a child between a wealthy female heir and her ex-husband revealed the largest spy scandal in German modern history.
According to the BBC, Christina Block, the heiress of a famous German steak chain brand, is accused of hiring an Israeli security team to violently kidnap her two children from Denmark. She is being tried along with six accomplices.
During the investigation of the case, clues pointed directly at August Hanning, former head of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND). This 80-year-old intelligence chief was arrested on October 6 local time on charges of treason and espionage. Approximately 2,000 confidential documents were involved, causing a stir in German politics and the intelligence community.
Augustine Hanning BBC
Block House is the heir of the German traditional steak chain restaurant. The brand specializes in steaks served with roasted potatoes. With stores spread across dozens of towns in Germany, after operating for half a century, Block House's father, Eugen, has accumulated a fortune of tens of millions.
The incident stems from a prolonged custody dispute between Brock and his ex-wife Stefan Hensel. At the beginning of their divorce, all four children lived with their mother in Hamburg. After Hensel remarried, she moved to Denmark, and the children would visit her regularly as agreed. In 2021, the youngest two children did not return to Hamburg as scheduled after visiting their family in Denmark, leading to a complete escalation of tensions between the parties.
The local court in Hamburg subsequently ruled that custody belonged to Brock, and ordered Hessel to return the child to Germany. However, in February 2023, a Danish court issued a judgment stating that although Hessel's initial act of bringing the child to Denmark was illegal, for the sake of the child's interests, it was not permissible to force the child to leave Denmark.
In May 2023, Hensel was charged in Germany for suspected kidnapping of a minor. The case is still under investigation. During the trial, Hensel accused Brock of using violence against the child. Brock denied this completely, stating that Hensel detained the child as revenge.
German prosecutors alleged in 2025 that Brock, along with his family lawyer Costaed, planned a transnational kidnapping operation to retrieve their child. They hired an Israeli security company to carry out the mission, led by 36-year-old Israeli citizen Jonathan, with five others involved in the operation.
The kidnapping occurred on New Year's Eve in 2023-2024. At that time, two children, aged 10 and 13 respectively at the time of the incident, were watching fireworks displays with their father, Hensel, in Denmark. Suddenly, several men approached, attacked Hensel, and forcibly took the two children into a car.
The convoy changed vehicles as they approached the German border. During the journey, tape was used to seal the mouths of the children, and the hands of the girls were tied together. Afterwards, the group drove a RV to the town of Baden-Württemberg in Germany, where they detained the children. On January 2, 2024, Brock went to the local authorities to take the children away, bringing them back to his residence in Hamburg.
Christina Brock BBC
In July 2025, Brock was tried in a highly secured court in Hamburg along with six other defendants, which attracted significant attention from the German media nationwide.
Among them, Brock, Costa, and Jonathan are charged with kidnapping minors, serious physical injury, and illegal detention. Brock’s partner, former sports television host Delin, and two others are charged as accomplices.
So far, only Jonathan has admitted being involved in the operation. However, he argued in court that he thought it was a “rescue operation”. The other defendants denied any involvement. Brock claimed to be completely unaware of the kidnapping plan, arguing that it was Israel’s security team that acted without his knowledge, and that the whole incident was a “disaster”.
The head of the Israeli security team, Barkey, did not attend this trial and will face legal proceedings later. During his testimony, he stated that Block and Costaed were aware of the plan to take the child back in advance. Some witnesses identified Barkey as a former Mossad agent, but Barkey claimed he did not inform them of all the details because “he did not trust them.”
In the past 15 months, this case has been postponed several times and court hearings have been suspended. The reason for this suspension is that the current wife of the witness Hensel failed to appear in court, so the case will be suspended for two weeks.
The most explosive turn in this case was the revelation of the spy scandal involving former head of the German Federal Intelligence Service, Hanning, during the investigation.
The connection between both events dates back to an attempted kidnapping in 2022. At that time, the Brock side tried to use a private security company called System 360 to retrieve the child from Denmark and bring him back to Germany. They paid more than one hundred thousand euros for this operation, and Hanning was suspected of being involved in planning this action, responsible for arranging the accompanying security personnel.
Hannings lawyer denied the charges, and during the trial of the Brock kidnap case, Hannings was not listed as a defendant.
However, during the investigation of related individuals and the search of documents from the security company, investigators unexpectedly discovered more serious criminal clues: Hanning had long purchased confidential documents from his former senior advisor, Manfred D., and was passing state secrets to foreign forces.
On October 6th, local time, the German Federal Prosecution Office officially announced that Hanning, aged 80, has been arrested on charges of major treasonous espionage activities, possession of state secrets, attempted treason, and espionage activities.
Also arrested on the same day was Manfred D., who is 64 years old. After retiring from the Federal Intelligence Agency, Hanning continued to work there until his retirement in March 2026.
The prosecution revealed that from 2012 to 2026, Manfred D. used his position to obtain a large amount of “highly confidential information”. Many of these documents were intended for use only within the Federal Intelligence Agency. He passed this information to Hanning in exchange for payment. The number of documents involved was close to 2000.
Hanning was accused of using these confidential documents to write analysis reports for a foreign intelligence agency. At present, the prosecution has not revealed the country involved in the case and the identity of the recipient. According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, investigators are investigating possible connections between this case and Azerbaijan.
Hannings served as the head of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service from 1998 to 2005. He was a senior figure in Germany's intelligence system. After leaving his post, he worked as a private consultant for many years. He was also the first former head of the Federal Intelligence Service in German history to be suspected of engaging in espionage activities. His lawyer stated that Hannings had suffered "unfair persecution," and the allegations were "baseless."
As the former head of the German Federal Intelligence Service, Hannelore Hagen’s arrest is considered one of the most significant intelligence scandals in Germany after the end of the Cold War, and it dealt a heavy blow to the credibility of Germany’s foreign intelligence agencies.
The timing of the exposure of this case is quite awkward. Currently, German Chancellor Merz is pushing for legislation to expand the powers of the federal intelligence agency, in order to support its intelligence activities against Russia. This legislation would allow the agency to carry out espionage operations more actively overseas. The security flaws revealed in the Hanning case have led to doubts about the relevant reform proposals, and public opinion generally calls for addressing the shortcomings in internal supervision first.
In fact, this is not the first time that the German Federal Intelligence Service has been involved in a scandal regarding infiltration. In recent years, the agency has been exposed to security vulnerabilities, which even led some Western intelligence agencies to refuse to share crucial information with it. In 2022, the German government arrested former head of the Federal Intelligence Service, Kurt L., on charges of spying for Russia. The latter denied the accusations, and the case is still under investigation.
As of now, both the Brock kidnapping case and the Hanning espionage case are still under further investigation.
