A lab technician has been accused of being the only member of a Bulgarian spy ring able to pull off a plot to steal the mobile numbers of Ukrainian soldiers training in Germany.
Katrin Ivanova, 33, was told by prosecutor Alison Morgan KC at the Old Bailey that she had been described by the plotters’ leader as the most technically adept member of the group and that she was necessary to the planned surveillance in Stuttgart.
“You were the one who had the brains and ability,” Morgan said, as she cross-examined Ivanova for a full day at an espionage trial in the central criminal court.
Prosecutors say that Ivanova was part of a spy ring of Bulgarians living in the UK who were involved in a plot, on behalf of Moscow, to steal phone numbers of Ukrainian soldiers training on Patriot air defence systems at the Patch barracks in Stuttgart.
Morgan highlighted a message sent by Orlin Roussev, the leader of spy ring, to Jan Marsalek, a Russian agent believed to be based in Moscow, which said he wanted to send to Stuttgart “the minion who will operate the IMSI”, a sophisticated device able to mop up thousands of nearby phone numbers.
The prosecutor said Ivanova was “the chief minion” being referred to – but in reply she denied being able to operate the surveillance device. She said she had not been trained to use an IMSI catcher, or even heard of it until after her arrest in February 2023.
Ivanova said she had now seen the text message and others like it, in disclosures ahead of the trial, but insisted she knew nothing of discussions between Roussev and Marsalek at the time. “They refer many times to minions, not only to me,” she said, and denied being the person referred to.
Prosecutors later highlighted a message that her partner, Bizer Dzhambazov, 43, had sent her in October 2022 asking her to bring “the big IMSI for me to be able to prepare it and set with the laptop” as part of a trip to Roussev’s home in Great Yarmouth. Ivanova acknowledged receiving the message, but said it meant nothing to her.
Ivanova went to Stuttgart with Dzhambazov on what the prosecution say was a reconnaissance mission between 31 October and 3 November 2022. The court heard she took pictures and filmed the perimeter of the military base while on a walk with him.
During the hearing, Ivanova acknowledged that she was aware some surveillance equipment was kept in a flat she shared with Dzhambazov in Harrow, north-west London. That included a spy camera hidden in a Coca-Cola bottle, and in the flower of a minion toy from the Despicable Me films.
The lab technician is one of three Bulgarians living in the UK accused of spying on behalf of Russia between August 2020 and February 2023. She denies the charge. Ring leader Roussev and his friend and deputy Dzhambazov have both pleaded guilty and will be sentenced once the trial of the others concludes.
Ivanova told the court that she was “in an abusive relationship with Dzhambazov” whom she had known since she was 17. Though it was not physically abusive, she said, “that person was controlling without my realising”.
The lab technician said she was “heartbroken” to learn after their arrest that Dzhambazov had been in a relationship with another defendant, beautician Vanya Gaberova, for a year and a half.
“He betrayed me,” she told the court, and argued that Dzhambazov repeatedly gave her instructions for surveillance operations, which largely came from Roussev and Marsalek, and whose true purpose was never properly explained to her.
However, Morgan challenged her account that she was a victim, and forced Ivanova into admitting that she had had an affair of her own. After a brief denial, Ivanova acknowledged that she had been in “an open relationship” but insisted that was different to Dzhambazov’s conduct. He had “been in a parallel relationship with somebody for 18 months”.