Inside the spy ring waging Putin's war on British soil

Mark Hollingsworth looks at the origins of the Bulgarian freelance spy ring and how even the suburbs of Norfolk are now not immune from the sinister spying of Putin’s agents

- Mark Hollingsworth

Sitting in the unlikely setting of the Haydee Hotel, a modest eight-room guest house in Great Yarmouth, on the Norfolk coast, a Bulgarian spy called Orlin Roussev sends an encrypted message via Telegram to his controller. He discusses ideas for covert operations to destabilise the Kazakhstan government: “Hacking Kazakh nuclear power, leaking sex videos and crushing their currency... also, maybe a deep fake porn video of the son of the president.”

“Yes, these are cool and very feasible,” responds his intelligence handler.

“We need a gay club owner or security who can give an interview that the son of the Kazakh president is a regular gay customer,” adds an excited Roussev.

“Well, make it REAL-FAKE. We must use some actual facts or at least it leaks for the son to have been in London.”

“I know a few of the top UK porn stars and the circles with the elite clubs, SWING etc. We can check or at least create a real fake story.”

“Perfect.”

That exchange took place on 31 August 2022 and is one of 80,000 Telegram messages Roussev exchanged with his spymaster codenamed “Rupert Ticz”. His channel is just one of hundreds of spyware devices seized by police during a raid of his tiny room at the Great Yarmouth guest house.

The extraordinary cache included hidden bugs and signal jammers, 88 audio and visual recording devices, 221 mobile phones, 495 SIM cards and 11 drones. Spy cameras were hidden in sunglasses and stuffed toys amid piles of fake identity documents, notably 75 passports and 91 bank cards in various names.