Jury shown photos of ‘surveillance equipment, fake IDs and phone tracking device’ at Orlin Roussev’s home in converted hotel
Patrick Sawer Senior News Reporter
09 January 2025
A Russian spy ring amassed thousands of items of electronic surveillance equipment at its lair in Great Yarmouth, a court has heard.
A Russian spy ring amassed thousands of items of electronic surveillance equipment at its lair in Great Yarmouth, a court has heard.
Photographs of scanners, listening devices, cameras and fake ID printers seized by police were shown to an Old Bailey jury for the first time today.
The alleged spy ring – led by Orlin Roussev, a Kremlin agent, from his home in a converted hotel in the seaside town – had gathered more than 3,000 items of surveillance equipment, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, to use on espionage missions in the UK by the time police arrested them in February 2023, the court was told.
Roussev, 46, and Bizer Dzhambazov, 43, his second-in-command, have already admitted to conspiracy to spy with a Russian agent using the alias Rupert Ticz, who prosecutors allege is Jan Marsalek, the fugitive boss of the German payments processor Wirecard.
Marsalek is wanted by Interpol in connection with an alleged £1.6 billion fraud at Wirecard, which collapsed in 2020.
Katrin Ivanova, Dzhambazov’s 33-year-old girlfriend, Vanya Gaberova, his 30-year-old lover, and Tihomir Ivanchev, Gaberova’s ex-boyfriend, 39, all deny being part of the conspiracy and are on trial at the Old Bailey.
‘Fake IDs, drones and tracking device found’
The jury were shown several photographs taken by Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism officers inside the office from where Roussev masterminded the spying operation.
Among the devices physically passed around members of the jury for closer inspection was one described in court as a “law enforcement grade” eavesdropping device for phones, also known as an IMSI grabber.
Officers found piles of equipment in Roussev’s rooms
The device, the size of a large shoe box, contained a software radio board “used in government and law enforcement telecoms intercept equipment”.
Police photographs showed piles of equipment scattered around the room in the former hotel in Princes Road, which Roussev used as a headquarters.
Also seized from the rooms rented by Roussev were printers and scanners capable of producing fake IDs, a large number of mobile phones, drones and numerous fake British, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Italian and Greek passports and ID cards, including a fake Czech passport in the name of Jan Marsalek, the court heard.
The jury was also shown a mobile phone tracking device, also described as of the type used by law enforcement agencies, which the prosecution said could be used along with the IMSI grabber “to intercept and or disrupt specifically targeted mobile phone operations … and identify an individual by their IMSI codes and locate them within five metres”.
The 33-room Haydee guest house from where Roussev ran the spy operation – calling it in messages his “Indiana Jones warehouse” – was described by the prosecution as a “typical seaside hotel”.
Roussev planned to use the surveillance devices 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 information would have allowed him to track the servicemen back to Ukraine and identify where the missiles were fired from but the plan was foiled in February last year.
‘Secret cameras in Coke bottle and Minion toy’
Similar surveillance equipment is alleged to have also been found in the home shared by Dzhambazov and Ms Ivanova in Harrow, north-west London, including GPs trackers and radio frequency jammers.
Two fake rocks with cameras hidden inside were also allegedly found at their address, along with a camera hidden in a watch and others hidden in a car key and a lighter. One hidden camera was allegedly hidden inside a child’s Minion toy.
Large numbers of mobile phones were also allegedly found by police, along with what the prosecution described as “a vast array” of computing equipment.
Dan Pawson-Pounds, prosecuting, told the jury: “A vast amount of surveillance devices which could be used to enable intrusive surveillance were recovered from the addresses which form part of this investigation.”
Counter-terror officers who searched the Harrow address also found a safe hidden inside a wardrobe, inside of which was a pink decorated box with false ID documents and a Samsung mobile phone belonging to Ms Ivanova, the court was told.
A tracking device was allegedly found in Dzhambazov’s bedside drawer, along with a radio jammer. Elsewhere in the property officers found a secret camera hidden inside a Coke bottle, the court heard.
The trial continues.
We have been allowing this shit since the 1950’s. There’s usually an expensive trial, the agents get sent down and later exchanged.
Much better to keep the evil fuckers out completely.
For decades, the West has had a bent-over attitude towards russians, even spreading their cheeks … just for the sake of earning a buck or two.
Had these cunts succeeded, it would have been very bad for the Ukrainians. Congrats to British security for stopping them.
Yes, at least they were caught. But, it does make you wonder how many more are out there, doing their evil deeds.