Three Bulgarians were found guilty in a London court on Friday of being part of a Russian spy unit run by Wirecard fugitive Jan Marsalek to carry out surveillance for the Kremlin on a U.S. military base and other individuals targeted by Moscow.
Marsalek tasked the sophisticated British-based Bulgarian team with spying on Ukrainian soldiers being trained at the U.S. base in Germany, with a view to tracking their movements on the battlefield after Russia's 2022 invasion, British prosecutors said. Austrian national Marsalek is wanted by German authorities as the former chief operating officer of collapsed payments company Wirecard, accused of a major fraud. Marsalek, whose current whereabouts are unknown but is believed to be in Russia, also discussed kidnapping journalists who were critical of the Kremlin and taking them back to Russia, prosecutors said.