A “sophisticated” UK-based spy ring passed secrets to Russia for nearly three years and gathered information on targets across Europe, a court has heard.
Three Bulgarian nationals – Katrin Ivanova, 33, Vanya Gaberova, 30, and Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev, 39 – allegedly carried out surveillance on individuals and places of interest to Russia.
Among those said to have been targeted were an award-winning Bulgarian journalist who worked with the late Russian opposition dissident Alexei Navalny. The journalist was allegedly the subject of discussions about killing or kidnapping him and taking him to Moscow.
Other alleged discussions concerned the deployment of two female defendants in a “honey trap” ploy to capture more information.
Alison Morgan KC, opening the case for the prosecution on Thursday, said: “Over a period of nearly three years they sought to gather information for the benefit of Russia, an enemy of the UK, information about various targets, both people and physical locations. Information of particular interest to the Russian state. Their activity caused obvious and inevitable prejudice to the safety and interests of the United Kingdom.”
She said of the defendant’s alleged activities: “It was high risk and it was highly sophisticated. The defendants earned significant sums for what they were doing. None of them engaged in this activity blindly.”
The defendants allegedly worked with a number of other people who spied for Russia between 2020 and 2023 in London, Vienna, Valencia, Montenegro and Stuttgart.
The spy ring included two more defendants, Orlin Roussev and Biser Dzhambazov, who have pleaded guilty to espionage charges, the Old Bailey heard.
Morgan said the defendants plotted with a Russian agent, Jan Marsalek, who was known as “Rupert Ticz” and was said to be an Austrian national, to obtain material useful to Russia.
Jurors were told that Dzhambazov, 43, was in a relationship with both Ivanova and Gaberova, and the latter was formerly involved with Ivanchev.
Morgan said the defendants may try to “rely on the relationships” and suggest they were misled “or were simply following people around Europe out of love or dedication”.
She said were tasked to spy on prominent individuals of obvious interest to Russia, often because they were dissidents who had fled their homeland for their own safety. Morgan told jurors: “It was high risk and it was highly sophisticated.”
A range of activities were alleged including surveillance operations, following people around and finding out where they were and then reporting back to the Russian state.
It allegedly included surveillance in 2022 at the Patch barracks, a US military base in Stuttgart, which the defendants believed to be a location where Ukrainian forces were being trained, according to Morgan.
The court was told that messages were exchanged between Marsalek and Roussev in which they discussed “options” relating to Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian journalist who has been the lead Russia investigator with Bellingcat, the award-winning investigative journalism group.
These options were said to have included carrying out surveillance of him, kidnapping him and taking him to Moscow, killing him and infiltrating Bellingcat.
The defendants deny conspiring to collect information for a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interest of the state between 30 August 2020 and 8 February 2023. Ivanova also denies possessing 18 false identity documents, including British and other passports and documents.
The trial is expected to go on until February next year.
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