Russian spy found hoarding gadgets in Norfolk hotel 'boasted he was James Bond character Q'
9 January 2025, 23:11 | Updated: 9 January 2025, 23:30
Orlin Roussev, who admitted being the ringleader of a UK-based Russian spy ring, compared himself to James Bond character 'Q' as he hid in a seaside hotel and hoarded surveillance gadgets.
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The spy was living in a guesthouse on the coast of Great Yarmouth which he used to store a large number of gadgets to be used for kidnapping and surveillance missions across Europe.
Orlin Roussev, 46, boasted to his controller that he felt like the James Bond character ‘Q’ as he prepared ‘toys’ he used for the spying operations for the Russians, a court heard.
It is thought he was taking instructions from an Austrian man named Jan Marsalek. The pair are also linked to a ‘honeytrap’ plot against investigative journalist Christo Grozev in 2021.
Roussev has pleaded guilty to running the spy ring, but three other individuals deny the charges against them.
The Old Bailey heard the hotel Roussev was staying at in Norfolk, which he described as an ‘Indiana Jones warehouse’, contained a ‘vast’ amount of gadgets and tech designed for ‘intrusive surveillance’, Sky News reports.
The Haydee guest house on Prince’s road, where Roussev was staying, was described by Dan Pawson-Pounds, prosecuting, as a 'typical seaside hotel' with 33 rooms.
Inside three of the rooms was a "significant amount of IT and surveillance equipment", and Roussev used two storage rooms and an office to store his surveillance equipment.
Detectives found thousands of items at the flat, including a cap with a concealed camera and a plastic Coke bottle with a hidden waterproof camera stuck behind its label.
There were also car key cloning devices, necklaces with hidden cameras, and water bottles with video cameras that could be connected to mobile phones, as well as wearable technology including watches, sunglasses, pens and ties.
The jury heard that Operation Skirp found 3,540 exhibits from a number of addresses, including 1,650 digital items.
Jury members were shown two "IMSI grabbers" - a £120,000 black metal box that can identify and capture mobile phone numbers from the nearby area.
The spies were planning to use the two devices, called ‘law enforcement grade’, near a US military base in Stuttgart, Germany, to spy on Ukrainian soldiers who were being trained to use Patriot missile defence batteries, the prosecution said.
If they weren’t arrested, they could have tracked the Ukrainians back to the battlefield and found out where they were firing the missiles from.
Other members of the group 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-decorator from Enfield.
Roussev and Biser Dzhambazov have both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to collect information useful to an enemy.
Dzhambazov, 43, is also allegedly a member of the spy ring.
Gaberova, Ivanova, and Ivanchev all deny the charges. All five alleged members of the group are Bulgarian nationals with ‘settled status’ in the UK.
Jan Marsalek and Roussev are also accused of a 'honeytrap' spy plot, in which they discussed deploying a 'true sexy b**ch' in a honeytrap plot against a UK-based journalist who won awards for investigating Russian espionage, the Old Bailey has heard.
The Bulgarian-led group allegedly carried out surveillance on Russian dissidents, journalists, and other targets across Europe, even discussing kidnapping or killing one of them.
"Rupert Ticz", aka Austrian national Jan Marsalek and 'Russian spymaster' of the group, exchanged a series of messages with lead spy Orlin Roussev about an operation on the investigative journalist Christo Grozev in 2021, the Old Bailey heard.
In the encrypted chat, the pair discussed engineering a fake romance between Mr Grozev, 55, and London-based beautician Vanya Gaberova, 30.
Gaberova had travelled to Valencia in Spain as part of a team to spy on Mr Grozev at a conference in the Palace Hotel which was also attended by Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins, jurors were told.
Read more: Putin's war in Ukraine has 'not been worth it', Russian Ambassador to the UK tells LBC
The operation, described as involving "high-level espionage with high levels of deceit", was led by Roussev and Biser Dzhambazov, both of whom have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to spy.
Three other defendants, Katrin Ivanova, 33, Vanya Gaberova, 30, and Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev, 39, deny the charges. Prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said the group acted “in a way that was prejudicial to the safety and interests of the UK”, gathering intelligence that would be “of particular use to Russia”.
The court heard that this was one of six espionage operations spanning London, Vienna, Valencia, Montenegro, Stuttgart, and other locations between August 2020 and February 2023.
Jurors were told that the two female defendants were allegedly deployed as "honeytrap" agents, described as "sexual bait" to extract information from targets.Grozev’s work included exposing Russian links to the 2018 Salisbury poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, as well as the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014.
The spy ring reportedly tracked him across Vienna, Valencia, and Montenegro, discussing options such as robbing him, burning his property, kidnapping him, or even killing him.
Prosecutor Alison Morgan KC told jurors that, as well as trying to "befriend" Mr Gozev, Gaberova had been engaged in capturing surveillance images of him at the conference.
The second operation targeted Roman Dobrokhotov, 41, a UK-based Russian dissident and founder of The Insider, in November 2022. Dobrokhotov fled Russia after his investigative reporting made him a target of the Kremlin.
The third operation, in November 2021, focused on Kazakh former politician Bergey Ryskaliyev, who had been granted asylum in the UK. The group allegedly targeted him to cultivate favour with Kazakhstan on behalf of Russia.
A fourth operation involved staging a fake protest outside the Kazakh embassy in London in September 2022. The aim was to fabricate intelligence for Kazakhstan’s authorities to gain their trust and bolster Russia's influence.
The fifth operation centred on Patch Barracks, a US military base in Stuttgart, Germany, believed by the group to be training Ukrainian soldiers during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The defendants allegedly used advanced technology to gather sensitive intelligence, including equipment capable of compromising soldiers' mobile phones.
The sixth operation targeted Kirill Kachur, a former member of the Investigative Committee of Russia, who fled the country in 2021 and was designated a "foreign agent" by Russia. Kachur was monitored by the group while in Montenegro between September 2021 and January 2022.
Prosecutors revealed the group used an extensive array of sophisticated spy equipment, including 221 mobile phones, 495 SIM cards, 33 audio recording devices, 55 visual recording devices, 11 drones, eavesdropping devices, jammers, and hacking software.
Much of the equipment was found at Roussev’s guesthouse in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, where he lived with his wife and stepson. The operation also involved the use of 75 passports and 91 bank cards under various aliases.
Funding for the group came from Jan Marsalek, alias "Rupert Ticz", described as their Russian spymaster. Marsalek allegedly channelled hundreds of thousands of pounds into the operation, with Roussev passing £204,000 to Dzhambazov for distribution among the ring.
The court heard details of the defendants' relationships, with Dzhambazov, 34, romantically involved with both Ivanova, a laboratory assistant, and Gaberova, a beautician.
Gaberova had previously been in a relationship with Ivanchev, a painter and decorator from Enfield. Ivanova denies possessing 18 false identity documents, including passports from multiple European countries.
Morgan said: “By gathering the information and passing it on to the Russian state, the defendants were putting many lives at risk.” She added it was “fanciful to suggest” that the defendants were unaware of the risks or their actions' significance.
The trial continues at the Old Bailey.
