Cautionary Tale for Traveling Executives - A Case of Spy Tradecraft...

A Bulgarian espionage ring working on behalf of Russia in the UK used video-recording spyglasses and honey traps to gather information on journalists and dissidents...

...five Bulgarian nationals who are accused of spying in Britain as part of a ring co-ordinated by Jan Marsalek, the former chief operating officer of Wirecard. 

London’s Old Bailey heard the group targeted journalists Christo Grozev and Roman Dobrokhotov, as well as Kazakh dissident Bergey Ryskaliyev, tracking them variously on flights and across European cities during 2021 and 2022. 

One member of the group, Katrin Ivanova, 33, used specially-designed glasses to record images and videos to watch Grozev on a flight from Vienna to Montenegro in June 2022, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said. The group had accessed an airline industry database called “Amadeus” through another Bulgarian contact to ascertain the flight details and seat numbers of their targets, the court heard. 

Ivanova also sat nearby Dobrokhotov on a flight in November 2021 and memorised his phone pin code, reporting it back to her handlers, Morgan added. “That was a correct capture and showed the tradecraft of Miss Ivanova,” Morgan told the court. 

The group also discussed bribing hotel staff, employing pickpockets and infiltrating a target’s home by hiring Bulgarian and Romanian cleaning teams, the court heard. more

Bulgarian national Katrin Ivanova (Elizabeth Cook/PA)

and... Russian agent discussed deploying a “true sexy bitch” in a “honeytrap” spy plot against an award-winning journalist, a court has heard...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...

She said: “These images were extremely important as they showed Christo Grozev together with others of interest to Russia, Eliot Higgins. 

“Roussev would later seek to use face recognition software to check that the image did show Christo Grozev with Higgins together.”...

She showed off her “tradecraft” by relaying images, using covert recording equipment and capturing Mr Dobrokhotov’s iPhone PIN number, Mr Morgan said. more