Russia Spy Ring members sentenced to prison in the case of the United Kingdom involving hidden cameras, love triangle and

A United Kingdom Court issued on Monday the terms of the prison of up to 10 years to six Bulgarians convicted for belonging to a Russian Espionage Cell described as something of a “spy novel”.

The researchers discovered false passports, hidden cameras, a spy love triangle and online secret chats on possible kidnappings and “honey traps.”

Orlin Roussev, 47, headed The operation From an old guest house in East of Great Yarmouth, where the police found a “Treasury” of Parapheralia Espía.

Judging the group in the former Criminal Court of Bailey in London, Judge Nicholas Hilliard said that the potential risks of spying in the United Kingdom and the attacked persons would have been clear.

It is believed that cell operations are among the enemy “larger and more complex” enemy operations ever discovered in the British soil.

Judge Hilliard said the defendants were “motivated by money”, with substantial sums of up to 1 million euros ($ 1.1 million) discussed, the BBC reported.

The judge added that the sums of money paid to the spies demonstrated the value of their activities covered to Russia.

The spies operated through the borders in the United Kingdom, Austria, Spain, Germany and Montenegro, according to the court.

Hundreds of Roussev property devices were recovered, including the hidden inside a rock, men’s ties, a bottle of Coca Cola and even a henchmen toy.

The police unraveled six operations that date from three years to August 2020 from a vast cache of telegram messages on Roussev’s phone.

In the Chat Roussev, nicknamed “Jackie Chan”, he referred to his spies as henchmen, characters from the animated film “Despicable Me”, while his second Biser of command Dzhambazov, 44, went through “Mad Max”.

In a sinister message about a possible kidnapping, Ringleader Roussev replied: “If you take seriously, I have the resources to kidnap, drug it and lock it in a safe cave.”

As a “spy novel”

Dominic Murphy, head of the Command against Terrorism of the London Metropolitan Police, described the cell as a “extremely sophisticated intelligence collection operation.”

The activities of the network had been a “true threat” for both specific people and national security with tactics as something of a “spy novel,” he said before the sentence audience.

The cell was directed by the alleged Russian agent Jan Marsalek, an Austrian businessman searched by Interpol after the collapse of the German payments processing Wirecard.

Marsalek acted as an intermediary for Russian intelligence and Roussev.

Roussev, Dzhambazov and Ivan Stoyanov, 33, declared themselves guilty of spying. They were sentenced to 10 years and eight months, 10 years and two months and five years, respectively.

The other three, the former competitive swimmer of open water, Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, the Laboratory Assistant Katrin Ivanova, 33, and the owner of the Beauty Hall business, Vanya Gaberova, 30, were declared guilty of espionage after a trial in March.

They were sentenced to eight years, nine years and eight months, and six years and eight months, respectively.

The defense lawyer of Gaberova, Anthony Metzer, said that Gaberova was “controlled, coerced in this conspiracy for Mr. Dzhambazov”, who was his lover and also involved with Ivanova, the BBC reported. He was told to the court that he had been diagnosed with depression, panic disorder, claustrophobia and anxiety.

The Network participated in a series of surveillance and intelligence operations aimed at people and places of interest for the Russian State.

They argued to use Gaberova as a “honey trap” to catch a high -profile journalist and drop blood into the Kazakhstan embassy in London by Dron.

Another plot was aimed at sweeping the data of the mobile phones of Ukrainian soldiers that are believed to receive training at an American air base in Germany.

When the police raided the houses of the cell members in February 2023, they found Dzhambazov, who was in a long -term relationship with Ivanova, naked in bed with his lover Gaberova.

Giving evidence, Gaberova said that Dzhambazov had cheated her, who thought she was an Interpol officer with brain cancer.

Bellingcat’s research journalist, Christo Grooev, was one of those attacked by the network after expelling Russian links to the attacks of the Nervous Agent of Novichok in the English city of Salisbury in 2018 and the fall of a Malaysian Airlines plane in July 2014.

Discovering that the Bulgarian ghosts had followed the movements of him and his family and spied on their communications for a prolonged period had been “terrifying, disorienting and deeply destabilizing,” he said in an impact statement.

In:
• Espionage
• Russia
• Bulgaria
• United Kingdom