Three Bulgarian nationals based in Britain were convicted on Friday by a London jury of spying for Russia on what prosecutors said was “an industrial scale.”
The trio was accused of putting lives in danger as they acted on orders on behalf of Russian intelligence to carry out surveillance across Europe between 2020 and 2023.
Katrin Ivanova, 33, Vanya Gaberova, 30, and Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev, 39, were convicted Friday at London’s Central Criminal Court after a trial that began in November.
The three, who were tangled in sexual relationships with one of their handlers or each other, denied being in on the plot and claimed they didn’t know who they were working for or were lied to by their superiors.
Metropolitan Police via Reuters
Their plans were laid out in thousands of messages exchanged between the cell’s leaders and recovered by police, the BBC reported. The messages included plots to kidnap and kill some of the group’s targets as well as plans to ensnare them in so-called “honeytrap” romances.
Prosecutors said they spied on a U.S. air base in Germany where Ukrainian troops were said to be training, and had discussed kidnapping or killing opponents of the Russian state.
They also allegedly tried to lure a Bulgarian journalist who uncovered Moscow’s involvement in the 2018 Novichok poisoning of a former Russian spy in Salisbury, England, into a “honeytrap” with Gaberova.
The ringleaders discussed robbing and killing Bellingcat journalist Christo Grozev, or kidnapping him and taking him to Russia, prosecutors said.
The spy cell had other jobs – Gaberova was a beautician, Ivanchev a painter and Roussev was at one stage the chief technology officer for a London financial firm, the BBC reported.
Metropolitan Police via Reuters
The police investigation turned up 221 mobile phones, 495 sim cards, 11 drones, and devices allowing data to be extracted from phones and eavesdropping on wi-fi activity, the BBC reported.
The spy ring also included two other defendants, ringleader Orlin Roussev and his underling Biser Dzhambazov. They previously pleaded guilty to espionage charges and having false identity documents.
Roussev, 47, was directed by alleged Russian agent Jan Marsalek, an Austrian national, who was in touch with Russian intelligence agencies, prosecutors said.
Dzhambazov and Ivanova lived together as a couple and worked in healthcare jobs, the BBC reported, but Dzhambazov was also in a relationship with Gaberova. The two were found in bed together when police made arrests – and Ivanchev had separately been in a relationship with her in the past, according to the BBC.
