The BBC has released the identities of three alleged spies working in the UK on behalf of Russia, which British police officers had access to during the investigation.
Three people – two men and a woman – have Bulgarian citizenship and have been detained since February for possessing false identity documents. Among them were identity documents from the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Slovenia, Greece and the Czech Republic.
According to the BBC, citing an investigation by the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism unit, the suspects have been identified as Arlin Roussev, 45, Beiser Djambazov, 41, and Catherine Ivanova, 31.
All had addresses in the United Kingdom and had lived in the country for several years. Rousseff, who served as an adviser to the Ministry of Energy in Bulgaria, is the only person noted to have business ties to Russia. On a professional level, according to his Linkedin profile, he owned a company specializing in communication interception technology.
According to neighbors quoted by the BBC in Harrow, north-west London, Zambazov and Ivanova lived as a married couple and worked as a hospital driver and laboratory assistant respectively.
Both ran a support organization for the Bulgarian community and worked on election commissions to help Bulgarian voters in the UK take part in elections in their home country.
The three suspects are due to go on trial in January, but charges against them have not been released.
The move, revealed Tuesday, is part of an effort to counter what British officials say has been an increase in spying activities linked to Russia in recent years.
In 2018, the most iconic episode took place in Salisbury in the attempted assassination of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia using the nerve agent Novichok.
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