Three Bulgarians found guilty of spying on Russia by the UK base | Spying news

Three Bulgarian citizens with headquarters in the United Kingdom have been convicted by a London jury of spying on Russia for what police said it was an “industrial scale”.

The trio was accused of exposing lives in danger, as the orders followed on behalf of Russian intelligence to supervise Europe to the Kremlin's opponents, including journalists, diplomats and Ukrainian troops.

The jurors at the London court in Bailey on Friday were established by Bulgarian citizens Catherine Ivanova, 43 years old, Vanya Gaberova, 30 years old, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, guilty of spying on Russia for what police were “industrial scale”.

The trio has participated in a series of surgery and intelligence operations in three years, during which one of their leaders called them “Minions”, a reference to the yellow side strikes in the film, Despible Me, who work for Supervilla Gru.

The defendants – who worked for the Russian Intelligence Service GRU – are up to 14 years in prison when they were sentenced in May, along with three other Bulgarian members of the same spy cell.

Trio leader Orlin Rusev, 47-year-old, his deputy biser jobaz, 43-year-old, and coonor Ivan Stoyanov pleaded guilty of spying on Russia shortly before the trial.

Rusev received over € 200,000 ($ 217,000) to finance spy activities.

The founder of the operation is assumed that the Russian agent Jan Marsaleck, a 44 -year -old, Austrian businessman, requested by Interpol after the collapse of the German payments processing company.

Marsalek, whose present location is unknown, but is thought to be in Russia, acted as between the connection of Russian intelligence and the spy ring, instructing them to carry out six serious operations in the UK, Austria, Germany and Montenegro until their arrest in 2023.

“This spying almost an industrial scale on behalf of Russia, Russian state and Russian intelligence services,” said Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Command of Police Terrorism in London.

“Indiana Jones”

British prosecutors said Marsaleck had loaded the British Bulgarian spying team Ukrainian soldiers Trained at an American basis in Germany, in order to track their movements on the battlefield after the invasion of Russia in 2022.

Another surgery related to Kristo Grozev's spying, a journalist with investigating website Belingkat, who runs a report on the poisoning of the Russian double agent in 2018, Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England, with a view to abducting or even killing him.

The group also focused on British Russian Roman Roman Dobrohotov, editor -in -chief of Insider, Bergei Riskaliaev, a former Kazakh politician provided asylum in the UK, and Russian dissident Kiril Kachur.

They discussed the release of the blood of false pigs at the Kazakhstan embassy in London from the drone as part of a false protest designed to win a favor to the Kazakh spies.

Police find a threesome of what they called a “truly sophisticated” spyware in an attack at Rusev's Operations Center in a former Grand Yarmut Sea Guest House, described in text reports such as its Indiana Jones Garage.

It included home -made audiovisual spyware hidden inside everyday items, including rock, men's ties, a coke bottle and a minion toy.

“Truly sophisticated devices – something you would really expect to see in a spy novel – were found here in Big Yarmut and London,” Murphy said.

Love triangle

Dzhambazov, who worked for a medical courier company but claims to be a police officer in Interpol, was in relationships with two other defendants – his assistant at the Laboratory Ivanova and the Gaberova cosmetics.

Gaberova, for her part, had dumped the decorator Ivanchev for Jobazov, who took her to restaurants with a Michelin star and stayed with her at a five-star hotel.

When police moved to arrest the suspects in February 2023, they found Jobaz in bed with Gaberova, not at home with Ivanova.

Both women claimed during the process that they were deceived and manipulated by Dzhambazov.

Justice Hilliard KC detained the defendants in custody until a sentence between May 7 and 12.