Spying isn't always about tuxedoes and high-stakes poker. Sometimes, it’s a beautician, a painter-decorator, and a healthcare assistant sitting in a car outside a fence in Stuttgart. In late 2022, a group of Bulgarian nationals living in the UK were doing exactly that. They weren't there for a vacation. They were allegedly hunting the digital footprints of Ukrainian soldiers at a US military base in Germany.
The target was Patch Barracks, a key hub where Ukrainian troops were learning to handle the Patriot air defense system. This wasn't just "gathering info." It was a cold, calculated attempt to tag these soldiers like migratory birds. Why? So Russia could find them and kill them once they returned to the front lines.
The "Minions" and the Wirecard Mastermind
The group actually called themselves "the Minions." Honestly, it sounds like a bad movie plot, but the reality was terrifyingly professional. They weren't acting alone. The strings were being pulled by Jan Marsalek, the infamous former COO of the collapsed payment firm Wirecard. Marsalek, who is currently one of the world's most wanted men and believed to be hiding in Russia, used a middleman named Orlin Roussev to run the cell.
Roussev's home in Great Yarmouth was basically a "spy factory." When police raided it, they found an "Indiana Jones garage" filled with high-tech toys. We're talking about:
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- Hidden cameras disguised as rocks.
- Recording devices stitched into ties.
- 221 mobile phones and nearly 500 SIM cards.
- 11 drones.
- A "Minions" cuddly toy with a hidden camera inside.
It’s easy to laugh at the plushie, but the technology was serious. They used something called an IMSI catcher. This device mimics a cell tower to trick nearby phones into connecting to it. Once a phone connects, the catcher grabs the IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) number.
The Stuttgart Surveillance Mission
In October and November 2022, the cell shifted its focus to Germany. Katrin Ivanova and Biser Dzhambazov traveled from London to Stuttgart to scout the perimeter of the US base. They took videos of the fences and wire mesh. They looked for apartments to rent nearby so they could set up their gear more permanently.
The plan was basically a digital trap. If they could identify the unique phone IDs of the Ukrainian soldiers training at Patch Barracks, the Russian GRU could track those same devices back in Ukraine.
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Think about that for a second. You’re a soldier learning a life-saving missile system in Germany, thinking you're safe for a few weeks. Meanwhile, a "tourist" in a car a few hundred yards away is effectively painting a target on your back for a future cruise missile strike. Prosecutors at the Old Bailey in London called this "spying on an industrial scale."
A Love Triangle and a Bad Ending
The group’s internal dynamics were just as messy as a soap opera. Biser Dzhambazov, who pretended to be an Interpol officer, was actually dating two of the other defendants at the same time: Katrin Ivanova and Vanya Gaberova. When the police finally moved in to make arrests in February 2023, they found Dzhambazov in bed with Gaberova, while Ivanova—his official partner—was at home elsewhere.
By May 2025, the game was officially over. A London court handed down heavy sentences. Orlin Roussev got over 10 years. Katrin Ivanova got nine. Vanya Gaberova and Tihomir Ivanchev also received significant prison time.
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The trial revealed that the German mission was just one of six major operations. They also targeted journalists like Christo Grozev of Bellingcat, even discussing the possibility of kidnapping or killing him. It shows how Russia is using "disposable" European citizens—people with normal jobs and EU passports—to do the dirty work that traditional intelligence officers can't easily do anymore.
What This Means for Military Security
This case changed the way Western bases handle personnel. If you're following this, there are a few key takeaways regarding how these "hybrid threats" actually work:
- Digital hygiene is life or death. Modern warfare starts with a SIM card. Soldiers are now being told to leave personal devices behind or use heavily encrypted, "burned" hardware during training.
- The "Ordinary Person" cover. Spies don't look like spies. They look like the person painting your house or the woman doing your nails.
- Cross-border coordination. This was a Russian operation, run by an Austrian, using Bulgarians living in England, to target Ukrainians in Germany. The bureaucracy of catching them is a nightmare, which is exactly what the Kremlin counts on.
If you are involved in sensitive transport, military support, or even high-level journalism, you should assume that local surveillance isn't just "suspicious behavior"—it’s a data collection point. Heightened vigilance around base perimeters and the use of signal-blocking pouches for mobile devices are no longer optional. They are the new baseline for survival in a world where your phone is a tracking beacon.