Bulgarians plead guilty to spying for Russia using ‘advanced technology’

Two Bulgarian nationals have pleaded guilty in the United Kingdom to being part of a spy ring run by a Russian agent in the U.K. The defendants used hundreds of devices, including drones, jammers and hidden bugs to target individuals and locations of interest to Moscow, prosecutors told a London jury on Thursday.

The two suspects — Orlin Roussev, 46, and Bizer Dzhambazov, 43 — admitted in court to conducting surveillance across Europe over a three-year period starting in 2020. Three other alleged accomplices — Katrin Ivanova, 33, Vanya Gaberova, 30, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39 — denied the allegations. Their trial is expected to continue until February.

According to U.K. prosecutor Alison Morgan, the spy ring was operating under the direction of Austrian national Jan Marsalek, the fugitive former chief operating officer of the collapsed fintech giant Wirecard. Marsalek, who is believed to act as an intermediary for Russian intelligence, is suspected of fleeing to Russia in June 2020, shortly after Wirecard announced that $1.9 billion was missing from its accounts.

The group reportedly spied on a U.S. military base in Germany, where Ukrainian forces were believed to be training. They also surveilled dissidents and journalists critical of Russia, including Bulgarian national Christo Grozev, who works for the investigative group Bellingcat.

Morgan said that Roussev exchanged messages about targeting Grozev, stealing his computer to deliver it to a Russian embassy, and even considered scenarios such as kidnapping or killing him, as per Reuters report.

Roussev was based in Great Yarmouth, while Dzhambazov lived in London. According to Morgan the group “deployed advanced technology to acquire information” and was paid significant sums of money for their operations.

The court heard that a Great Yarmouth guesthouse occupied by Roussev was “packed” with technical equipment used for spying, including mobile phones, hard drives, SIM cards, audio recording devices, drones, Wi-Fi eavesdropping equipment, and jammers, according to the BBC.

The defendants were involved in six spying operations carried out for the benefit of Russia and were charged by British counterterrorism police earlier this year. Their other targets include Roman Dobrokhotov, a Russian living in Britain who is editor in chief of The Insider, Bergey Ryskaliyev, a former Kazakh politician granted asylum in Britain, and Russian dissident Kiril Kachur.

In May, the U.K. expelled a Russian diplomat suspected of espionage, describing the action as part of “a string of robust measures taken against Russia to protect the U.K.” The government cited the Bulgarian spy ring as an example of “a pattern of malign activity carried out both here and abroad.”