Five people have been charged with spying for Russia in the UK. Orlin Roussev, Bizer Dzhambazov, Katrin Ivanova, Ivan Stoyanov, and Vanya Gaberova will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Tuesday, a BBC report said.
The Bulgarian nationals have been accused of conspiring to gather information on the UK, and the offences took place between August 2020 and February 2023. “The charges follow an investigation by the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command,” Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said, Al Jazeera reported.
The defendants are said to have worked in an operational spy cell for the Russian security services, which included them conducting surveillance on targets. Roussev, Dzhambazov and Ivanova were charged in February with “possession of false identity documents with improper intention”, the CPS said. They possessed passports and false identity documents for the UK, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, and the Czech Republic.
Roussev moved to the UK in 2009 and worked in a technical role in financial services. Britain, in July, passed a national security law in a bid to take tougher action on external security threats.
Dzhambazov and Ivanova moved to the UK around a decade ago, and ran a community organisation providing services to Bulgarian people.