Five-person spy network caught with hundreds of phones and fake passports in UK

A spy network based in Britain worked on high-tech operations for Moscowʼs benefit‚ as revealed in Old Bailey court hearings. Orlin Roussev and Bizer Dzhambazov already said they worked with someone called “Rupert Ticz“ (who prosecutors think is Jan Marsalek) while three others deny being part of it

The group had lots of gear - including 221 phones 500 sim cards and 75 passports; they used this stuff to watch people and places that Russia wanted info about. Their main contact paid them real good money - records show they got hundreds of thousands of pounds

One of their big jobs was checking out a US base in Stuttgart where they thought Ukrainian soldiers were training (this was right after Russia started its thing in Ukraine). They planned to use fancy tech to grab info about everyone there‚ The gangs boss Roussev got like 80000 messages from his Russian contact talking about stuff like the GRU FSB and even Vladimir Putin

They also went after Christo Grozev - a guy who digs up dirt on Russian stuff. The gang followed him around Europe and talked about maybe stealing his stuff kidnapping him or worse. Their plans were pretty wild: they even thought about using the ladies in the group as honey-traps to get close to targets

The whole thing got messy cause of relationships - both Katrin Ivanova and Vanya Gaberova were dating Dzhambazov at different times. But prosecutors say this wasnt just some love-drama thing: these people knew exactly what they were doing

This is not the sort of activity that you carry out simply because of romantic relationships

The court will hear more about six different operations they did including a fake protest they wanted to do at the Kazakh Embassy. Three of them still say theyʼre not guilty - but the trial goes on til next year