LONDON (AP) — Three Bulgarian nationals based in Britain were convicted Friday by a London jury of spying for Russia on what police said was “an industrial scale.”
The trio, nicknamed “the Minions” by one of their ringleaders, was accused of putting lives in danger as they followed orders on behalf of Russian intelligence to carry out surveillance across Europe on Kremlin opponents, including journalists, diplomats and Ukrainian troops.
Katrin Ivanova, 33, Vanya Gaberova, 30, and Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev, 39, were convicted at London’s Central Criminal Court after a trial that began in November. Jurors deliberated for more than 32 hours before finding the Bulgarians guilty of plotting to spy for an enemy state.
They face up to 14 years in prison when they are sentenced in May along with three other Bulgarian members of the same spy cell.
The three, who were tangled in sexual relationships with one of their handlers or each other, denied being in on the plot and claimed they didn’t know who they were working for or were lied to by their superiors.
Prosecutors said that the suspects carried out operations in the U.K., Austria, Spain, Germany and Montenegro between 2020 and 2023. It was alleged that they spied on a U.S. air base in Germany where they believed Ukrainian troops were training, and had discussed kidnapping or killing opponents of the Russian state.
They also allegedly tried to lure a Bulgarian journalist who uncovered Moscow’s involvement in the 2018 Novichok
poisoning of a former Russian spy in Salisbury, England, into a “honeytrap” romance with Gaberova. The spies followed Bellingcat journalist Christo Grozev from Vienna to a conference in Valencia, Spain, and the gang’s ringleaders discussed robbing and killing him, or kidnapping him and taking him to Russia.
The group also discussed dropping fake pigs’ blood on the Kazakhstan Embassy in London by drone as part of a fake protest intended to win favor with Kazakh spies.
The spy ring was led by two other Bulgarian defendants, ringleader Orlin Roussev and his underling Biser Dzhambazov. They previously pleaded guilty to espionage charges and having false identity documents. A sixth Bulgarian man, mixed martial arts fighter Ivan Stoyanov, 33, has also admitted spying for Russia.
Roussev, 47, was directed by alleged Russian agent
Jan Marsalek, an Austrian national wanted by Interpol after the 2020 collapse of German payment processing firm Wirecard. His whereabouts are unknown.
The cell discussed plans in chats on secure messaging app Telegram that were found by police on Roussev’s phone. In the messages, Roussev was nicknamed Jackie Chan, while Dzhambazov, 43, went by Mad Max and Jean-Claude Van Damme. He referred to his trio of spies as “the Minions,” after the yellow cartoon sidekicks from the film “Despicable Me.”
A trove of what police called “really sophisticated” spyware was found in a raid on Roussev’s operations center in a former guesthouse in the faded English seaside town of Great Yarmouth. It included homemade audiovisual spy devices hidden inside everyday objects including a rock, men’s ties, a Coke bottle and a Minions cuddly toy.
Dzhambazov, who worked for a medical courier company but claimed to be an Interpol police officer, was in a relationship with two other defendants — his laboratory assistant partner Ivanova and beautician Gaberova. Gaberova, in turn, had ditched painter-decorator Ivanchev for Dzhambazov, who took her to Michelin-starred restaurants and stayed with her in a five-star hotel.
When police moved in to arrest the suspects in February 2023, they found Dzhambazov naked in bed with Gaberova rather than at home with Ivanova.
Both women claimed during the trial that they had been deceived and manipulated by Dzhambazov.
“Reading some of the messages and content on the devices you might be tempted to think this is not a serious threat,” said Commander Dominic Murphy, counterterrorism chief at London’s Metropolitan Police. “But behind those nicknames was an extremely sophisticated intelligence-gathering operation that posed a threat to national security and individuals, including journalists.
“This was industrial-scale espionage on behalf of Russia,” he said.
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