A Russian operative resided in a “standard coastal hotel” on the shores of England, packed with electronic monitoring devices, as revealed in court.
Orlin Roussev claimed to his supervisor that he was morphing into the James Bond persona “Q” while gearing up his espionage “gadgets” for abduction and observation endeavors throughout Europe.
Reportedly, he followed directives from a handler named Jan Marsalek, who is being sought in relation to a £1.6bn technology scam associated with the company Wirecard.
Roussev, 46, a Bulgarian citizen, has admitted to orchestrating a spy network on behalf of the Russian government, though three other associates of the group contest the allegations.
The Old Bailey was informed that a “substantial” quantity of technical gear for “covert surveillance” was discovered at Roussev’s location in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, which he referred to as his “Indiana Jones storage room” in communications.
The Haydee guesthouse, located on Prince’s Road, comprised 33 rooms as stated by prosecutor Dan Pawson-Pounds.
Three of these rooms contained a “considerable amount of IT and surveillance apparatus,” which was organized in two storage areas and an office utilized by Roussev, according to court testimonies.
The jury learned that Operation Skirp seized 3,540 pieces of evidence from various locations, including 1,650 digital items, and demonstrated two “IMSI grabbers”—a compact black box capable of capturing mobile phone numbers from the vicinity.
Both devices were labeled as “law enforcement quality” and were designed to intercept or disrupt targeted mobile phone communications and identify individual phones through their IMSI and IMEI numbers, supported by a direction-finding instrument.
The operatives intended to deploy these outside a U.S. military base in Stuttgart, Germany, to extract information from the mobile devices of Ukrainian soldiers undergoing training for Patriot missile defense systems, as per the prosecution.
The information gathered would have enabled them to trace the servicemen back to Ukraine and ascertain the launch sites of the missiles, but their scheme was thwarted with the arrests made in February of the prior year.
Read further on the trial:
Five individuals suspected of spying for Russia are charged, CPS reports
Spies involved in love triangle were set for a ‘honeytrap’ operation across Europe
Agents devised a plan to abduct a journalist linked to the Salisbury incident
Devices with concealed cameras as part of the evidence
Additional discoveries featured necklace pendants equipped with concealed cameras, water bottles linked to mobile phone video surveillance, a Pandora device for cloning car keys, as well as more conventional monitoring tools such as night vision binoculars and handheld radios.
The ensnared spy ring allegedly comprised Katrin Ivanova, age 33, a laboratory assistant from Harrow, North London; Vanya Gaberova, 30, a beautician from Acton, West London; and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, a painter and decorator hailing from Enfield.
Roussev and Biser Dzhambazov, a 43-year-old individual from London who is also purportedly part of the ring, have both confessed to conspiracy for collecting information beneficial to an adversary.
Gaberova, Ivanova, and Ivanchev all refute the allegations, and the trial proceeds. All five individuals are Bulgarian citizens possessing “settled status” in the UK.
Further equipment—including a black cap concealing a camera and a one-liter plastic Coca-Cola bottle incorporating a waterproof camera concealed behind the label—was found in the lounge of a North London apartment shared by Ivanova and Dzhambazov, according to evidence presented.
The trial is ongoing.