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Five Bulgarian nationals will appear in a London court next week to face allegations of suspected spying for Russia, the UK’s public prosecutor said on Thursday.
The Crown Prosecution Service said it had authorised a charge of conspiracy to conduct espionage against three men and two women, who will appear at Westminster magistrates’ court on September 26.
Orlin Roussev, 45, from Great Yarmouth, and Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, and Katrin Ivanova, 31, both of the same address in Harrow, north-west London, will be charged with conspiring to collect information intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy for a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interest of the state between August 30 2020 and February 8 2023.
Ivan Stoyanov, 31, from Greenford, west London and Vanya Gaberova, 29, from north-west London will face the same charge.
Roussev, Dzhambazov, and Ivanova were previously charged in February 2023 with possession of false identity documents with improper intention under section 4 of the Identity Documents Act 2010. The trio appeared at London’s Old Bailey court in July.
The latest charges followed an investigation by the Metropolitan Police.
MPs and security analysts voiced concerns about activity by Russian spies in the UK even before Russia invaded Ukraine last year, and Britain has named Russia the “most acute threat” to its national security.
President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion has led to the expulsions across Europe of about 400 Russian diplomats for alleged spying, and there have been examples of western security services exposing Russian sleeper agents working under deep cover.
Russian spies were involved in the 2006 murder of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London and the attempted murder in 2018 of Russian defector Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.
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