LONDON, May 7, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Six Bulgarians, members of a sophisticated spy network dubbed "The Minions", will appear in a London court on Wednesday facing up to 14 years in prison for spying for Russia.

The four men and two women will be sentenced on charges of conspiracy to spy at Russia's behest following hearings at London's Old Bailey court.

The six-person cell targeted journalists and a Kazakh former politician, and plotted to kidnap and honeytrap targets, tracking them in an almost three-year operation across several European cities.

It was "industrial-scale espionage on behalf of Russia", Metropolitan police counter-terrorism Chief Commander Dominic Murphy said in March.

"This is one of the largest and most complex examples of a group working for a foreign state" ever uncovered in the UK, Murphy added.

Ringleader Orlin Roussev, 47, along with his second-in-command Bizer Dzhambazov, 43, and Ivan Stoyanov, 32, had pleaded guilty to spying.

London-based Katrin Ivanova, 33, Vanya Gaberova, 30, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, were convicted in March after a trial lasting more than three months at the Old Bailey court.

The espionage took place between August 2020 and February 2023, the court heard.

- Working for GRU -

They spied on people and places "that were of interest to the Russian state", setting up operations in the UK as well as Austria, Spain, Germany and Montenegro, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Ivanova was also found guilty on charges of possessing false identity documents with improper intention.

They dubbed themselves "The Minions" after the cartoon yellow characters in the film "Despicable Me" who work for the dastardly Gru. The six also worked for the GRU, the acronym for the Russian military intelligence service.

UK police were able to retrace six of their operations thanks to more than 100,000 messages found on Roussev's Telegram account, which led police to his seaside home in the eastern town of Great Yarmouth.

Roussev received his instructions from Jan Marsalek, an Austrian fugitive who reportedly fled to Russia in 2020 after becoming wanted for fraud in Germany.

Marsalek, the former chief operating officer of payments firm Wirecard, was acting as a proxy for Russian intelligence services, according to the CPS.

Another operation targeted investigative journalist Christo Grozev, from the Bellingcat website, who uncovered Russian links to the 2018 Novichok chemical weapon attack in the English town of Salisbury and the downing of a Malaysia Airlines aeroplane four years earlier.

The group had planned "disruptive activity" at the Kazakh embassy in 2022, discussing a plan to spray the building with fake pig's blood.

It also carried out surveillance on a US military base in Germany the same year.

"They compiled detailed reports on their targets and were paid significant sums of money for their work," the CPS said.

- Like a 'spy novel' -

Roussev received more than 200,000 euros ($227,000) for his activities.

After the gang was busted in February 2023, police found huge amounts of spyware equipment in his home, including cameras and microphones hidden in ties, a stone, even a cuddly toy and a fizzy drinks bottle.

"Really sophisticated devices -- the sort of thing you would really expect to see in a spy novel -- were found here, in Great Yarmouth and London," said Murphy.

He added that the group had posed a threat to national security and to individuals.

Journalist and UK-based dissident Roman Dobrokhotov, and former Kazakh politician Bergey Ryskaliev, who won refugee status in Britain, were also among their targets.

The group also kept the US military base Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany, under surveillance, believing that Ukrainian soldiers were being trained there in using the Patriot air defence system.

Ties between Britain and Russia have been strained since Moscow's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

British security minister Dan Jarvis warned that the convictions should "send a clear warning to those who wish to do the UK harm".