Russian spy who hoarded surveillance gadgets in English hotel boasted of being like James Bond character Q, court hears
A Russian spy was living in a “typical seaside hotel” on the English coast crammed full of electronic surveillance equipment, a court has heard.
Orlin Roussev boasted to his controller that he was becoming like the James Bond character “Q” as he prepared his spying “toys” for kidnap and surveillance operations across Europe.
He is said to have taken instructions from a handler called Jan Marsalek, who is wanted in connection with a £1.6bn tech fraud linked to a company called Wirecard.
Roussev, 46, a Bulgarian national, has pleaded guilty to running a spy ring on behalf of the Russians, but three other members of the group deny the charges.
Orlin Roussev pleaded guilty to running a spy ring on behalf of the Russians. Pic: Met Police
The Old Bailey was told a “vast” amount of technical equipment for “intrusive surveillance” was found at Roussev’s address in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, which he described in messages as his “Indiana Jones warehouse”.
The Haydee guest house on Prince’s Road had 33 rooms according to Dan Pawson-Pounds, prosecuting.
Inside three of them was a “significant amount of IT and surveillance equipment”. It was stacked up in two storage rooms and an office used by Roussev, the court was told.
The jury heard that Operation Skirp seized 3,540 exhibits from a number of addresses, including 1,650 digital exhibits, and was shown two “IMSI grabbers” – a black metal box capable of capturing mobile phone numbers from a nearby area.
An IMSI grabber, which can capture mobile phone numbers from a nearby area. Pic: Duncan Gardham/MPS
Both devices were described as “law enforcement grade” and could be used to intercept or disrupt targeted mobile phone communications and to identify an individual phone by their IMSI and IMEI numbers, in conjunction with a direction-finding unit.
The spies planned to use them outside a US military base in Stuttgart, Germany, to gather information from the phones of Ukrainian servicemen who were being trained to operate Patriot missile defence batteries, the prosecution said.
The information would have allowed them to track the servicemen back to Ukraine and identify where the missiles were fired from, but the plan was foiled when the men were arrested in February last year.
Read more on the trial:
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Pic: Duncan Gardham/MPS
Gadgets with hidden cameras part of evidence
Other findings included pendant necklaces with hidden cameras, water bottles with mobile phone-linked video surveillance capability, a Pandora car key cloning device, and more traditional surveillance equipment such as night vision binoculars and mobile radios.
Pic: Duncan Gardham/MPS
The spy ring’s members allegedly included Katrin Ivanova, 33, a lab assistant from Harrow, North London, Vanya Gaberova, 30, a beautician from Acton, West London, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, a painter and decorator from Enfield.
Roussev and Biser Dzhambazov – a 43-year-old man from London who is also an alleged member of the ring – have both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to collect information useful to an enemy.
Gaberova, Ivanova, and Ivanchev all deny the charges and the trial continues. All five are Bulgarian nationals with “settled status” in the UK.
More equipment – including a black cap with a concealed camera and a one-litre plastic Coke bottle with waterproof camera behind the label – was found in the lounge at a North London flat shared by Ivanova and Dzhambazov, the trial has heard.
The trial continues.
Specialist search teams, police dogs and divers have been dispatched to find two sisters who vanished in Aberdeen three days ago.
Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both 32, were last seen on CCTV in the city’s Market Street at Victoria Bridge at about 2.12am on Tuesday.
The siblings were captured crossing the bridge and turning right onto a footpath next to the River Dee in the direction of Aberdeen Boat Club.
Henrietta Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Eliza Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Police Scotland has launched a major search and said it is carrying out “extensive inquires” in an effort to find the women.
Chief Inspector Darren Bruce said: “Local officers, led by specialist search advisors, are being assisted by resources including police dogs and our marine unit.”
Aberdeenshire Drone Services told Sky News it has offered to help in the search and is waiting to hear back from Police Scotland.
CCTV of the sisters. Pic: Police Scotland
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The sisters, from Aberdeen city centre, are described as slim with long brown hair.
Police said the Torry side of Victoria Bridge where the sisters were last seen contains many commercial and industrial units, with searches taking place in the vicinity.
The force urged businesses in and around the South Esplanade and Menzies Road area to review CCTV footage recorded in the early hours of Tuesday in case it captured anything of significance.
Drivers with relevant dashcam footage are also urged to come forward.
CI Bruce added: “We are continuing to speak to people who know Eliza and Henrietta and we urge anyone who has seen them or who has any information regarding their whereabouts to please contact 101.”
Glasgow has been a city crying out for solutions to a devastating drugs epidemic that is ravaging people hooked on deadly narcotics.
We have spent time with vulnerable addicts in recent months and witnessed first-hand the dirty, dangerous street corners and back alleys where they would inject their £10 heroin hit, not knowing – or, in many cases, not caring – whether that would be the moment they die.
“Dying would be better than this life,” one man told me.
It was a grim insight into the daily reality of life in the capital of Europe’s drug death crisis.
Scotland has a stubborn addiction to substances spanning generations. Politicians of all persuasions have failed to properly get a grip of the emergency.
But there is a new concept in town.
From Monday, a taxpayer-funded unit is allowing addicts to bring their own heroin and cocaine and inject it while NHS medical teams supervise.
A dirty needle thrown less than 100 metres from the new injection centre
It may be a UK-first but it is a regular feature in some other major European cities that have claimed high success rates in saving lives.
Glasgow has looked on with envy at these other models.
One supermarket car park less than a hundred metres from this new facility is a perfect illustration of the problem. An area littered with dirty needles and paraphernalia. A minefield where one wrong step risks contracting a nasty disease.
Drugs paraphernalia in a supermarket car park in Glasgow, near the new facility
It is estimated hundreds of users inject heroin in public places in Glasgow every week. HIV has been rife.
The new building, which will be open from 9am until 9pm 365 days a year, includes bays where clean needles are provided as part of a persuasive tactic to lure addicts indoors in a controlled environment.
There is a welcome area where people will check in before being invited into one of eight bays. The room is clinical, covered in mirrors, with a row of small medical bins.
Clean needles are provided to lure addicts to inject in a controlled environment
There are eight bays users can inject in
We were shown the aftercare area where users will relax after their hit in the company of housing and social workers.
The idea is controversial and not cheap – £2.3m has been ring-fenced every year.
The aftercare area
Read more: ‘Dying would be better than my £1,000 a month heroin addiction’
Authorities in the city first floated a ‘safer drug consumption room’ in 2016. It failed to get off the ground as the UK Home Office under the Conservatives said they would not allow people to break the law to feed habits.
The usual wrangle between Edinburgh and London continued for years with Downing Street suggesting Scotland could, if it wanted, use its discretion to allow these injecting rooms to go ahead.
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The stalemate ended when Scotland’s most senior prosecutor issued a landmark decision that it would not be in the public interest to arrest those using such a facility.
One expert has told me this new concept is unlikely to lead to an overall reduction in deaths across Scotland. Another described it as an expensive vanity project. Supporters clearly disagree.
The question is what does success look like?
The big test will be if there is a spike in crime around the building and how it will work alongside law enforcement given drug dealers know exactly where to find their clients now.
It is not disputed this is a radical approach – and other cities across Britain will be watching closely.
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