Chris Bell
BBC News Survey
Tom Beale
BBC News Survey
Daniel de Simone
BBC News Research Correspondent
BBC
Roman Dobrokotov is used to being seen over his shoulder.
One of the investigation into Russian journalist Vladimir Putin’s regime expelled the person responsible for Salisbury addiction in 2018 targeted him by the Kremlin.
However, as the insider editor was waiting for him to board a commercial flight from Budapest to Berlin in 2021, he was supposed to give evidence at a murder trial, so he didn’t notice the brunette woman standing behind him.
He had no thought of it when she sat near him. He also did not quietly record the camera tied to her shoulder.
Metropolitan Police Distribution Materials
On board the ship in Dubrokotov, Rome, the flight was recovered by police from a surveillance report
That morning, the woman flew from Luton to Budapest to find the mark. Dobrokhotov flight information was obtained in advance.
As the aircraft approached its destination, a Bulgarian, Katrin Ivanoba woman sent a message to the telegram.
Her partner, Visor Zhanbazov, lived in Harrow, north of London, but was waiting for her and Dobrokotov in Berlin.
Another woman, an airport worker identified only as cvetka, had already flew a dummy run on the route.
She was waiting in Berlin and she had a different eye.
They lost him.
For years, the cell has pursued Russian enemies all over Europe. The leaders plotted honey traps, tricks and murders to serve the Kremlin. After the trial, three members were convicted of part of the conspiracy at Old Bailey, London on March 7th. Three more had already pleaded guilty.
“We are in a situation where only some of us can survive,” Dobrokotov later told the BBC.
“It would either be a Russian journalist and a human rights watcher, or Vladimir Putin and his murderer.”
Watching the event unfolding in Berlin from the UK was another Bulgarian, Aurin Rusev, the final member of 47 Telegram Group.
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The associate recalls Orlin Roussev as a man fascinated by spies. The email address associated with him includes 007 Sobriquet, the world’s most famous secret agent.
He moved to the UK in 2009 and founded a company involved in signal intelligence: communications or electronic signal interception.
When officers searched the 33-room Great Yarmouth former guesthouse where they lived with their wife and son-in-law, they discovered “a huge amount of technical surveillance equipment that can be used to enable intrusive surveillance.”
They may not have been dry. It was Aladdin’s cave, disguised as a messy seaside relic. A sophisticated communication intercept device worth £175,000. Radio frequency jammers; cover camera hidden in smoke detectors, pens, sunglasses, and even men’s tie. A horde of fake identity documents and equipment to make more. The encrypted hard drive was still open. On Roussev’s laptop, I saw Telegram’s conversation.
Amidst a large amount of equipment, police discovered the business card of one-time financial enforcement officer Jan Marsalek.
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When police searched Orlin Roussev’s office, a web page was open entitled “Hacking safer portable storage devices”
Roussev first met Jan Marsalek in 2015 and was introduced and recalled by mutual acquaintances he met in the office of UK investors and wealth advisors. In an email from the time the BBC saw, Marsalek is asking for Roussev’s help in getting a secure mobile phone from a Chinese company.
PP Mune Chan
According to prosecutors, Jan Marsalek, a former treasurer linked to the Russian intelligence reporting agency, was directing the operation using the alias “Rupert Ticz.”
Jan Marsalek was then respected Chief Operating Officer of German payment processing company Wirecard. The report that Wirecard’s business practices began to appear in the Financial Times was unharmed that it was valued at over £20 billion at its peak as a star performer in the European fintech sector.
Now he was instructing the operation as Russev’s controller when it came to the execution from the fraud charges after the collapse of 2020.
The pair came up with an operation that was thought to be training at US military facilities in Stuttgart. They discussed the sale of drones that were filmed from the Ukrainian battlefield to China. And they did it for Russia.
In connection with the provincial intelligence reporting agency, Marsalek is believed to be hidden in Moscow. He has not faced any charges in the UK.
The group employed by Rusev, all the Bulgarians, were not popular imagination spies.
Along with Dzhambazov, a medical courier, and Ivanova, an assistant in the lab, he hired a hairdresser who has a salon in Acton, Vanya Gaberova. Painter and decorative Tikhomir Ivanchev. Furthermore, Ivan Stoyanov, an MMA fighter known as a “destroyer,” wearing a battle on his face.
Metropolis Police Handouts and Social Media
Clockwise from top left: Orlin Roussev, Katrin Ivanova, Ivan Stoyanov, Biser Dzhambazov, Vanya Gaberova, Tihomir Ivanchev
Neighbors who knew two of the accused were skeptical that they could be found guilty. They were too stupid and knew nothing, the neighbors argued, but they praised the “giant calves” of the fighter.
But they were not effective – Roman Dobrokotov recognized none of the group’s faces when the photos were shown to him by the police.
Groups manipulated clear hierarchies. Rusev reported to Marsalek, who reported to “Russian Friends.” Rusev managed the rest of the Bulgarians he called his “minds.”
“There are no bosses here,” Zambazov wrote.
Nevertheless, the “minions” were attached to the number of the phone decorators of dzhambazov.
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Katrin Ivanova told the ju umpire he didn’t know that Vizars Zambazov and Vanya Gabellova were behind her back
The dynamics of the group were complicated. Dzhambazov and Ivanova were in a long-term relationship and lived together. Gabelloba and Ivanchev were in a relationship until 2022.
However, when it exploded into the hairdresser’s northwest London flat in February 2023, it was found in bed together by dzhambazov and Gaberova police.
Between August 2020 and February 2023, Marsalek and Roussev exchanged 78,747 messages on the Telegram messaging app.
They revealed at least six surgeries that Spycel was appointed to the mission over the years.
Like Dobrokotov, Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev was seen in his home in Vienna. The camera in the windows of a nearby rental apartment was trained at his entrance.
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A phone camera supported by a stand and a water bottle is trained at the door of Christo Grosef in Vienna
He stroked his tail on the flight, took photos at a Valencia hotel, and had breakfast with the co-founder of BellingCat’s research group Elliot Higgins.
At the thorns on the side of the Russian intelligence reporting agency, it was observed that he met in Bulgaria with an arms trader who was the victim of an attempted assassination in connection with the Russian state.
Gabellova was instructed to become friends with him.
In Montenegro, Cell searched for Kiril Kachule, who worked for the Russian investigation committee until he was a foul of the Kremlin. They longed to be impressed. The second Russian intelligence team circled a chain containing a blonde woman sucking a chain called “Red Sparrow.”
Kirill Kachur/YouTube
Marsalek and Roussev discussed both Grozev and Kachur’s involuntary and murder. It was not a threat to the sky – Kachur’s colleagues were taken separately to Moscow.
Bergay Liskariev, a former Kazakh politician with a refugee status in London, had targeted a luxurious apartment in Hyde Park. Further reconnaissance took place at his home.
Bergey Ryskaliyev/Facebook
Ivan Stoyanov, who recognized his role in the plot, was found parked at the Toyota Prius outside his address. Ryskaliyev’s assistant Sussicious focused on the license plate.
When confronted, the MMA fighter jet claimed he was working at Kensington Hospital and provided tests. The next day, the NHS logo was placed on the windshield.
Prosecutors said providing information about political dissidents like Riskariev “is based on Russia’s attempts to control diplomatic relations.”
Certainly, Marsalek will leave Roussev even more on another project. A standard scheme to launch a gradual protest at the Kazakh Embassy dropped by the drones. Russia will help “reveal” the “activists” to which the nervous Kazakh security services are responsible.
In February 2022, a Telegram exchange between Marsalek and Roussev revealed that it was believed that Christo Grozev had traveled to Kyiv.
Their offer to seek help was rejected.
Less than three weeks later, Russian tanks had surged across the borders of the eastern, south and north of Ukraine.
Later that year, Marsalek asked Roussev if the sophisticated communication interceptor equipment, one of Cell’s three IMSI grabbers, could be deployed to spy on German Ukrainian soldiers. Rusev has promised to retrieve it from “Indiana Jones Garage” from “collecting dust.”
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Police found many IMSI grabbers at the Great Yarmouth address in Orlin Roussev
Marsalek has repeatedly returned to this idea.
By February 2023, Rusev and Marsalek had planned to send dzhambazov and “another” to Stuttgart, whom Ukrainian soldiers believed were training for Patriot missile systems.
If they deployed and captured Ukrainian military mobile data as planned, they may have used it to identify those same troops on the battlefield.
“This was a espionage of the highest level of seriousness,” prosecutor Alison Morgan KC told the old Bailey ju judge.
Before carrying out their plans, they were arrested – dzhambazov, Ivanova, Gaberova, Stoyanov in London, Rusev of his guesthouse.
Orlin Roussev was arrested on February 8, 2023 in Great Yarmouth
Ivanchev surrendered himself to the police outside Gaberova’s apartment, but he was not arrested for another year.
In his first police interview, he told officers he had tentatively spoken with MI5. The interview was suspended.
Police body cam footage shows Tikhomir Ivanchev outside Vanya Gabellova’s flat
None of the six denied their actions.
Rusev, dzhambazov, and Stoyanov pleaded guilty before trial. Ivanova, Gabelloba and Ivantev denied that they knew they were working in Russia.
Ju-search disagreed.
Ivanova, Gaberova and Ivanchev were found guilty after a ju apprentice deliberation of more than 32 hours. Ivanova was also found guilty of possessing multiple incorrect identity documents.
They could be up to 14 years in prison. They will be declared in May.
But that’s not the end.
“Without a change of government, there will be a new team of people who will kill or lure you out,” Roman Dobrokotov told the BBC.
“This is what really motivates us to work.
“From the beginning, I was convinced that it was directly controlled by Vladimir Putin.
“In his dictatorship, you will never take responsibility for doing such political things.
“You will always issue orders directly from the president.
“Putin is a psychopath who has no borders,” he said.
