A “sophisticated” UK-based spy ring that passed secrets to Russia for nearly three years has been found guilty of espionage, in one of the most complex investigations carried out by the Met Police.
Bulgarian nationals Katrin Ivanova, 33, Vanya Gaberova, 30, and Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev, 39, formed part of a group that carried out surveillance on Russian dissidents and put “many lives at risk”, with plans to even kidnap and kill certain targets.
They included a Bellingcat investigative journalist, a Kazakhstani former politician and a Russian lawyer, while the group also spied on a US army base in Germany where Ukrainian troops were said to be trained.
Upon their arrest, hundreds of spyware devices were discovered including hidden bugs and signal jammers, as well as 33 audio devices, 55 visual recording devices, 221 mobile phone phones, 495 sim cards, 11 drones, 75 passports and 91 bank cards in various names.
Two more defendants, Orlin Roussev and Biser Dzhambazov, who were the main operators of the ring, had pleaded guilty ahead of trial to espionage charges.
An Old Bailey trial heard that the group received hundreds of thousands of pounds which was channelled through their Russian spymaster “Rupert Ticz”, said to be Austrian national Jan Marsalek.
Over the course of three years, the spy ring plotted six spying operations which were “extremely risky” and included filming their targets, orchestrating direct contact and using the female defendants as sexual bait to gather information.
Between September and November 2021, they targeted Bellingcat investigative journalist Christo Grozev, 55, who had exposed Russian links to the 2018 Salisbury attack and the downing of a Malaysia Airlines plane in July 2014.
He was tracked by the group in different locations in Austria, Spain and Montenegro, with Roussev and Marsalek hoping to engineer a fake romance between him and London-based beautician Gaberova.
This included her sending him a Facebook request and taking pictures of him both at a conference in Valencia and eating breakfast at his hotel.
Marsalek and Roussev also discussed various options, including robbing Mr Grozev, burning his property, kidnapping him and taking him to Moscow, infiltrating Bellingcat, and even killing him.
The second operation was targeting another UK-based Russian investigative journalist, Roman Dobrokhotov, who is the founder of The Insider and is considered a target for Russian intelligence.
To conduct surveillance, Ivanova was placed to sit next to him on a flight from Budapest to Berlin, where she used covert recording equipment and succeeded in capturing his iPhone PIN number.
During discussions about the operation in November 2021, Marsalek allegedly commented: “I would love to kidnap the guy now even more.”
The third operation was in London and involved surveillance of Kazakhstan dissident Bergey Ryskaliyev at two west London addresses.
There was discussion about dressing up as Deliveroo drivers to gain access to the properties and using ambulances as “perfect cover” to disguise their activities.
Also related to cultivating ties between Russia and Kazakhstan, the fourth operation involved staging a fake protest outside the former Soviet country’s embassy in September 2022.
The group’s aim was to create a pretence that the spies had genuine intelligence about those responsible to pass over to the Kazakhstan intelligence services to curry further favour.
In 2022, the defendants carried out surveillance on Patch Barracks, a US military airbase in Stuttgart, Germany, and used highly sophisticated technology to gather sensitive intelligence.
Giving evidence, Ivanova claimed she was deceived and betrayed by her long-term partner Dzhambazov, and had been unaware of her involvement in a spy ring.
She said she first began questioning her involvement when asked to take pictures of the barracks, which were believed to be training Ukrainian soldiers on the Patriot missile system.
The sixth operation targeted Russian lawyer Kirill Kachur when he was spending time in Montenegro between September 2021 and January 2022.
Dzhambazov, 43, was in a relationship with both Ivanova and Gaberova, with the latter formerly involved with Ivanchev.
Jurors heard that members of the group had connections in the “highest echelons” of the Bulgarian government, and that Ivanova, Dzhambazov and co-accused Gaberova had helped in the 2021 elections when president Rumen Radev entered power.
In text messages between Roussev and Dzhambazov, the latter said he had a “very strong relationship” with Mr Radev and two other senior Bulgarian politicians, which he said was “iron clad”.
The attempted assassination of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the Salisbury poison attack showed Russian intelligence services were prepared to kill on UK soil, the court was told.
As a consequence, the government had worked to make it harder for Russia to carry out covert action, leading to them increasingly using non-Russian operatives.
Prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said Russia was an “enemy” state in the sense that it posed a national security threat, even though it was not at physical war with the UK.
Mr Justice Hilliard KC remanded the defendants into custody until sentencing between 7 May and 12 May.
The defendants face sentences of up to 14 years in jail for their activities in the UK, Austria, Spain, Germany and Montenegro.
