Three Bulgarian national based in the United Kingdom have been sentenced by a London jury to spy on Russia about what police said it was « an industrial scale. »
The trio was accused of endangered, as they followed the orders in the name of Russian intelligence to carry out Europe in Europe for Kremlin opponents, including Ukrainian journalists, diplomats and troops.
A jury of the former London Court in Bailey found the 43 -year -old Bulgarian Katrin Ivanova National, Vanya Gaberova, a 39 -year -old, 39 -year -old Vanya Gaberova, guilty of spying on Russia, so that the police said it was « an industrial scale. »
The trio devoted himself to a series of surveillance and intelligence operations for three years, during which one of his leaders is in the nickname -The Minions « , a reference to the yellow companions in the film, Desicable Me, who work for Supervillain Gru.
The defendants, who worked for the Russian Intelligence Service Gru, face 14 years in prison when sentenced in May along with three other Bulgarian members of the same spy cell.
The leader of the trio, Orlin Roussev, 47, his deputy Biser Dzhambazov, 43, and co-conspirator Ivan Stoyanov had been found guilty to spy on Russia shortly before the trial.
Roussev received more than 200,000 euros ($ 217,000) to fund espionage activities.
The master’s master of the operation was alleged Russian agent Jan Marsalek, 44, an Austrian businessman desired by Interpol after the collapse of the German Payment Processing Firm Wirecard.
Marsalek, who is unknown to his current place, but is believed to be in Russia, acted as a link between Russian intelligence and the spy ring, which ordered them to carry out six serious operations in the United Kingdom, Austria, Spain, Germany and Montenegro until their arrest in 2023.
« This spied on an almost industrial scale in the name of Russia, Russian and Russian intelligence services, » said Dominican Commander Murphy, the head of the London police’s terrorism command.
HQ ‘Indiana Jones’
British prosecutors said that Marsalek commissioned the Bulgarian team based Ukrainian soldiers To be trained in a North -American base in Germany, with the aim of tracking its movements on the battlefield after the 2022 Russia invasion.
Another operation was to spy on Christo Grozev, a Bellingcat journalist, a research website, who directed a report on the poisoning of the double Russian agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England, with the aim of abducting or even killing him.
The group also headed to the Russian Russian Base Dobrokhotov, the editor-in-chief of The Insider, Bergey Ryskaliyev, a former Kazakh politician granted asylum to the United Kingdom and the Russian dissident Kiril Kachur.
They argued to drop the blood from the fake pigs to the Kazakhstan embassy in London by Drone as part of a false protest aimed at gaining favor with the Kazakh spies.
Police found a meeting of what they called « really sophisticated » spy programs in a raid on the Roussev operations center in an old guest house in the coastal city of Great Yarmouth, described in text messages as his « Garage of Indiana Jones. »
It included homemade audiovisual spy devices hidden inside everyday objects, such as a rock, male ties, a bottle of coca and a tiny toy.
« Really sophisticated devices, the kind of things you really expect to see in a spy novel, were found here in Great Yarmouth and London, » said Murphy.
Triangle of Love
Dzhambazov, who worked for a medical messaging company but stated that he was an Interpol police officer, was in connection with two other defendants: his assistant partner Ivanova and the aestheticist Gaberova.
Gaberova, in turn, had searched the painter Ivanchev’s decorator for Dzhambazov, who took her to Michelin -starred restaurants and stayed with her in a five -star hotel.
When the police moved to arrest the suspects in February 2023, they found Dzhambazov in bed with Gaberova instead of house with Ivanova.
The two women stated during the trial that they had been deceived and manipulated by Dzhambazov.
Mr. Justice Hilliard KC sent the defendants to custody until the ruling between May 7 and May 12.
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