Russia’s latest war tactic: Hire local criminals

London – While the British detectives studied the granular video surveillance of the fire warehouse, there were first few reasons to think that they were looking for a secret Russian intelligence operation.

The March 2024 video of the Cromwell industrial zone in eastern London showed two masked men’s pouring of the gas outside the warehouse door, making it on fire with a hot cloth, then fleeing in the night.

The fact that the storage installation belonged to a Ukrainian logistics company which dispatched humanitarian aid and the Internet dishes by Satellite Starlink in Ukraine initially raised any alarm.

But 10 days later, when a warehouse belonging to the same company was burnt down in the Spanish capital Madrid, the detectives realized that it was much larger than a simple case of criminal fire.

The investigation and the accusation that followed would highlight what Western officials have warned is a dangerous Russian tactic: the hiring of local criminals to carry out acts of sabotage across Europe.

“It is a relatively new thing to see criminal proxies used on behalf of foreign states”, CMDR. Dominic Murphy, the chief of the London metropolitan police terrorism unit, told British Broadcast Sky News, international partner of NBC News in July. “We have seen this trend develop in the past year or two, and I am sure that we will continue to see it develop during the next year.”

In the past year, NATO governments have accused Russian intelligence agencies to remotely recruit criminals and use them to sow chaos.

The exact number of attacks is difficult to quantify. The allegations range from Great Britain to Estonia via the Czech Republic to Poland – where, according to the authorities, Russia paid a group to burn the largest shopping center in the country in May 2024.

Moscow denies all the allegations of sabotage, including in the case in London. “Russia has never engaged in sabotage activities against the United Kingdom and does not intend to do so,” Russia’s Embassy said in a statement.

Calvin Bailey, a British deputy who sits on the restricted defense committee, said that London’s attack corresponded to a model in which Russian agents used encrypted applications and cryptocurrency to hire criminals while trying to hide their own involvement.

“They are encouraged by money, but the use of telegram and bitcoin creates a plausible denial and allows Russians to keep their distance,” said Bailey in a recent interview. “He hides the path, whether it is a monetary path or one of the connections.”

According to British prosecutors, the path that led to the burning warehouse in eastern London began in March 2024, when a 21 -year -old British drug trafficker named Dylan Earl launched communications with an anonymous story on Telegram with user names “Privet Bot” and “Lucky Strike”.

The story was managed by an agent of the Wagner group, the Russian mercenary group who fought in Syria and Ukraine before launching a short -term mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin in June 2023, but was now brought to the Kremlin.

Earl expressed his interest in joining Wagner as an armaic, saying: “I need a new start” after his crime life in short time in the United Kingdom, according to documents published by prosecutors.

But the Russian manager said Wagner had different use for him: carrying out operations in Europe.

During hundreds of messages, the Russian manager offered the young British criminal of money and ideological encouragement to burn the warehouse, which could bring him around $ 8,000.

“I’m going to make you rich. And give you things that no one else can. Citizenship. Passports. Everything,” said the Russian manager in a message published on the Privet Bot account. In another, the manager said, “You are our dagger in Europe.”

Earl was also encouraged to adopt a clandestine lifestyle by watching the FX program “The Americans” on KGB spies operating under cover in the United States.

“Look how they describe Russia. But you see the United Kingdom and the United States,” wrote the manager. “Sans-a-brushing everywhere. Drugs, etc. It is made of the brother. They want people to be afraid. ”

Earl knew he was dealing with a Wagner agent but did not back away.

A few weeks after their initial messages, Earl had recruited a group of young accomplices to carry out the attack on the warehouse. According to the prosecutors, only one of them – Jake Reeves, 23 years old – understood that they were starting the fire on Russian orders.

Neither Earl nor Reeves were present when the fire was launched by Nii Kojo Mensah, 23, Jakeem Rose, 21, and Ugnius Asmena, 23, who were all found guilty of aggravated criminal fire. Instead, they watched a live flow from the fire on FaceTime supplied by Asmena.

The men who really triggered the fire thought it was only a criminal act – Earl never told them that they were acting on Russian orders.

British detectives intensified hunting after realizing that they were probably dealing with an operation sponsored by the Russian state targeting the Ukrainian company. They arrested EARL in early April and after accessing his phone, quickly established his connection to the Wagner group.

Earl and Reeves both pleaded guilty to an aggravated criminal fire and offenses under British national security laws.

There is no suggestion that they were linked to other attacks across Europe or to the groups that accomplish them.

“This case is a clear example of a Russian state organization using” proxies ” – in this case British men – to carry out very serious criminal activities in this country on their behalf,” said Murphy, the head of the fight against terrorism puts, in a statement after the verdict.

The supported criminal attacks supported by Russia through Europe are generally non -sophisticated intelligence operations. Many plots, like that of London, involve a criminal fire.

In June, a Colombian was imprisoned for eight years in the Czech Republic after being found guilty of having set fire to buses in Prague. Like Earl, he also received orders by a Russian manager on the Telegram messaging application and said he registered by setting fire, according to the Czech authorities.

This type of attack is relatively low for Russia, compared to the sending of its own professional agents to an increasingly hostile Europe.

But there is evidence that the Russian operator managing Earl had higher ambitions for his group of British gangsters for the rental.

British police said that at the time of their arrest, they had already started surveillance operations for their next conspiracy: kidnapping a Russian dissident named Yevgeny Chichvarkin and burning his starred skin restaurant by Michelin in one of the most expensive districts in London.