A Russian spy was living in a "typical seaside hotel" on the English coast crammed full of electronic surveillance equipment, a court has heard. Orlin Roussev boasted to his controller that he was becoming like the James Bond character "Q" as he prepared his spying "toys" for kidnap and surveillance operations across Europe.
He is said to have taken instructions from a handler called Jan Marsalek, who is wanted in connection with a £1.6bn tech fraud linked to a company called Wirecard. Roussev, 46, a Bulgarian national, has pleaded guilty to running a spy ring on behalf of the Russians, but three other members of the group deny the charges.
The Old Bailey was told a "vast" amount of technical equipment for "intrusive surveillance" was found at Roussev's address in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, which he described in messages as his "Indiana Jones warehouse". The Haydee guest house on Prince's Road had 33 rooms according to Dan Pawson-Pounds, prosecuting.
Inside three of them was a "significant amount of IT and surveillance equipment". It was stacked up in two storage rooms and an office used by Roussev, the court was told. The jury heard that Operation Skirp seized 3,540 exhibits from a number of addresses, including 1,650 digital exhibits, and was shown two "IMSI grabbers" - a black metal box capable of capturing mobile phone numbers from a nearby area.
