Giorgi Udzilauri, a person arrested on charges of espionage today

The person arrested by the State Security Service for espionage is Giorgi Udzilauri, an employee of the Ministry of Finance - Rustavi2 reports.

Giorgi Udzilauri worked with Bidzina Ivanishvili in 2016-2017. In particular, since March 2016, he was the head of the public relations department of the Cartu Group.

According to the investigation, the accused, on the instructions of foreign special services, systematically collected and transmitted information containing state secrets on the political, economic and security processes taking place in the country.

The SSU did not specify which country, although "Kurieri" writes that Udzilauri was spying for one of the European countries.

The investigation is underway under Article 314, which provides for imprisonment from 8 to 12 years.

According to the State Security Service, the accused had systematic contacts of a conspiratorial nature with foreign special services.

The meetings were planned using encrypted two-way communication and were held at various locations, in strict compliance with the previously agreed terms of conspiracy. The information was provided both through face-to-face contact and by electronic means.

The information transferred to the foreign special services included various categories of secret data related to the ongoing political and economic processes in Georgia, the situation in law enforcement agencies and security structures, information about ethnic and religious minorities, and other data of interest to the customers of the information transfer.