Inside a Russian spy ring: minions, mishaps and honeytraps

Vanya Gaberova, the “killer sexy brunette” at the heart of a Russian espionage ring, was conflicted about whether to sleep with her mission controller.

The fact that Biser Dzhambazov was already in a long-term relationship with a fellow spy while Gaberova’s own lover was set to join their international surveillance team complicated the sexual dynamic.

“He may not be the best-looking guy but he has a good heart,” said Gaberova, 30, as she explained how Dzhambazov lured her into his hotel bed during a mission in Valencia, Spain.

• Spies guilty of doing Putin’s bidding in Britain

The beautician knew that hours earlier the bed had been occupied by his girlfriend and fellow spy, Katrin Ivanova, 33. “After we went to this hotel and had an amazing time, that’s when I fell in love with him,” she added.

Leaders of the espionage ring were obsessed with spy and action movies but many aspects of the operation could be lifted from the scripts of Carry On films.

Jurors giggled openly during the trial at the Old Bailey. Alison Morgan, KC, the prosecutor, urged them at the end of the case to consider the seriousness of operations even if they were inclined to find “humour or incompetence or to laugh off their activities as amateurish”.

The use of 007 in the email address of Orlin Roussev, the gang’s mastermind in the UK, provided an obvious clue to his secret activities. In messages on the secure Telegram service, he used the codename Jackie Chan, the Hollywood action hero.

Dzhambazov, 43, called himself Jean-Claude Van Damme after another Hollywood star. Ivanova, Gaberova and her former boyfriend, Tihomir Ivanchev, were described simply as “Minions”.

The use of “Minions” is one of the clues that betrays a link with Russia’s foreign military intelligence agency, the GRU, police believe. Gru is also the name of a supervillain character aided by his small yellow Minions in the Despicable Me cartoon franchise. One of the group’s many covert video recorders was concealed in a Minion soft toy.

Some of the spy ring’s plots verged on fantasy, more Johnny English than James Bond.

Plans for a black propaganda operation targeting the Kazakhstan embassy in London — bizarrely arranged to help Russia curry favour with the regime of President Tokayev, 71 — took surreal twists.

They discussed creating “deep fake” gay pornography featuring the president’s son, Timur, 40, or setting him up in a honeytrap with Gaberova. Another plot involved recruiting the comedian and actor Sacha Baron Cohen because of his Kazakh character Borat. They also discussed using drones to drop litres of blood on the embassy.

When discussing what to do with a troublesome journalist, Roussev suggested following the lead of Mossad’s operation in kidnapping Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal taken from Argentina to Israel. “Stalin was right … there is a person … there is a problem … no person … no problem,” he commented.

Roussev, 46, compared himself with James Bond’s technical expert “Q” while boasting of the mass of equipment he stored at the shabby hotel which became the ring’s headquarters in Great Yarmouth.

Not all the equipment was used successfully.

Dzhambazov was filmed berating Ivanovna for inadvertently recording him with a concealed camera as they carried out surveillance outside a US military base in Germany. Gaberova tried on a pair of “spy” sunglasses in Montenegro, and accidentally took a picture of herself in a mirror:

The footage and photograph were used during the trial as evidence of their participation in the espionage missions.

Ivanova was reprimanded for failing to correctly set up one of the surveillance video recorders. A week’s worth of recording was not saved, meaning the ring would not be paid by their Russian taskmasters.

Along with the Hollywood codenames came schemes that could have been lifted from a Bond script. One involved smuggling a kidnapped journalist on to a yacht, which would then transfer him to a Russian submarine.

Many plots featured a series of “gypsy” gangs they believed could be recruited to assist them in eastern Europe.

Another involved recreating a scene from the film The Fast and the Furious in which a fleet of supercars was used to confuse the pursuing police so they could escape with a kidnapped journalist. Pickpockets would be hired to steal mobile telephones and computers from targets.

Amid the confusion of the international operations, Dzhambazov promised Ivanova they could move from their flat in Harrow Weald, north London, to a smarter address in Euston in the heart of the capital. She bought a bed and decorated the apartment in preparation for the move.

Unknown to Ivanova, he also promised the flat to Gaberova, who disliked the new decor and promptly repainted it.

Dzhambazov’s lies were beginning to unravel: Gaberova was suspicious that he was still in a relationship with Ivanova, who was asking why he was away so often.

When he could no longer juggle the affections of the two women, Dzhambazov disappeared. He re-emerged, claiming to be in hospital with a brain tumour. During a video call with Gaberova, he appeared with a toilet roll wrapped around his head as a makeshift bandage in an attempt to prove the seriousness of his condition:

Dzhambazov has avoided explaining his deceit to the women by pleading guilty to conspiracy to spy for Russia alongside Roussev before the start of the trial.

Ivanova, Gaberova and Ivanchev, who claimed they were tricked into believing they were working for Interpol, were on Friday found guilty of the same charge.

Ivanova was already at work when she was arrested in a dawn raid in February 2023. The previous night, Dzhambazov had managed to talk his way back into Gaberova’s bed when the police burst into her flat.

“Just for the protocol, he always sleeps naked, it doesn’t mean something happened,” Gaberova insisted. Some jurors buried their heads in their arms to stifle the laughs.