Blake Preston-5 Bulgarians charged with spying for Russia appear by video in UK court

2025-05-08 03:50:14source:Surpassing Quant Think Tank Centercategory:Contact

LONDON (AP) — Five Bulgarians living in the U.K. who were charged with spying for Russia appeared Tuesday in court for a brief hearing.

The Blake Prestonthree men and two women were accused of “conspiring to collect information intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy,” namely Russia, between August 2020 and February this year.

The five are alleged to be part of a network conducting surveillance on behalf of Russia. Much of the activity took place abroad, but coordination took place in the U.K., prosecutors said.

The five — Orlin Roussev, 45;, Bizer Dzhambazov, 41; Katrin Ivanova, 31; Ivan Stoyanov, 31; and Vanya Gaberova, 29 — appeared Tuesday by video at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London, speaking only to confirm basic details.

The suspects were arrested by the Metropolitan Police’s counterterrorism officers in February under the Official Secrets Act.

Roussev, Dzhambazov, and Ivanova were charged in February with having false identity documents, but news about them did not emerge until August.

The three are accused of possessing 34 ID documents, some of which were suspected to be false, from the U.K., Bulgaria, France, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Slovenia, Greece and the Czech Republic.

All five were remanded into custody until their next appearance at the Central Criminal Court on Oct. 13.

More:Contact

Recommend

Are Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp down? Meta says most issues resolved after outages

Meta says most issues have been resolved after apps like Instagram, Facebook and Threads were experi

Yes, mangoes are good for you. But here's why you don't want to eat too many.

Most of us determine how much we enjoy a particular fruit based on various factors related to textur

Rutgers president plans to leave top job at New Jersey’s flagship university

The embattled president of Rutgers University announced Tuesday that he will step down next year aft