Police probe more than 100 Britons amid fears they could be spying for Russia, Iran and China

More than 100 Britons are under investigation over fears they may be spying for hostile foreign states including Russia, Iran and China, a senior counter-terrorism chief has revealed.

Security services are currently carrying out around 160 investigations linked to state threats, the vast majority of which focus on suspected proxies operating within the UK.

In some cases, individuals are thought to have been recruited without realizing they were providing information to foreign governments.

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of London Counter Terrorism Police and national lead on counter-state threats, said: Times There appears to be a sharp increase in the number of foreign powers recruiting people from all parts of society, including criminals, professionals and even those working in the legal and financial sectors.

He said the activity ranged from cyber operations to intelligence gathering to much more serious plans.

‘The breadth of activity is very significant,’ he said, adding that it could extend ‘to an assassination plot in the United Kingdom’.

Security officers are now disrupting hostile state activities with increasing frequency. ‘There are outages at extraordinarily regular intervals,’ Murphy said. ‘We disrupt something almost every month, and often much more regularly than that.’

The warning comes as concerns grow in Westminster about espionage operations linked to China, Russia and Iran, which Murphy described as the ‘big three’ running proxy operations in the UK.

He was involved in an arson attack in East London that destroyed vital Starlink satellite equipment destined for Ukraine.

Dramatic footage has captured the moment Dylan Earn, who was recruited online by Russian spies to carry out a horrific arson and kidnapping campaign, was tackled to the ground by armed police in April 2024.

In November, MI5 warned that British MPs were being targeted by Chinese agents posing as bounty hunters on LinkedIn.

More recently, two British men were accused of passing political information to a Chinese intelligence officer, but the case was later dropped and the men denied any wrongdoing.

Russia-related activities have also led to criminal convictions. Dylan Earl, 21, from Leicestershire, was convicted under the National Security Act 2023 and ordered to commit arson at a London warehouse for Ukraine after being recruited by the Wagner Group.

According to security sources, Earl and five of his minions were trapped by an automated Russian chatbot searching for recruits on the encrypted Telegram app before their communications were taken over by Russian intelligence officers.

Counter-terrorism police said the men were part of a Europe-wide sabotage campaign carried out by ‘grey zone proxy actors’ on behalf of the Russian Federation.

Meanwhile, former British soldier Daniel Khalife was sentenced to 14 years in prison earlier this year for spying for Iran and passing sensitive information to Tehran, including the names of elite special forces personnel.

The 23-year-old man, who claimed to be on a one-man ‘double agent’ mission but was labeled an ‘attention seeker’ by a judge this afternoon, was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court in London and ordered to pay £10,000 towards prosecution costs.

Judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said Khalife, who was ignored when he contacted MI6 and MI5 in his attempts to become a double agent, was motivated by a ‘selfish desire to show off’ and described him as a ‘dangerous idiot’.

Khalifa was in the British Army when he ‘exposed’ military personnel to serious harm by collecting sensitive information and passing it on to Iranian agents. He was paid in cash and told the officers that he would stay in the army for more than 25 years on their behalf.

Former soldier Daniel Khalife was sentenced to prison for spying for Iran and escaping from prison

Daniel Khalife photographed following his arrest on a canal towpath in London on September 9, 2023

Murphy stated that Iran was particularly active in using proxy forces to target dissidents living in the UK and warned: ‘Iran’s threat in this context is quite serious.’

He said most hires were not ideologically motivated, but that money and hiring mostly occurred online, especially through encrypted platforms such as Telegram.

“A lot of times it’s more of an online environment,” Murphy said, warning that social media algorithms could make it easier to target vulnerable individuals.

Some people caught in investigations may not even realize they are participating in espionage.

Murphy said private investigators and legitimate businesses are sometimes used unwittingly under the guise of debt collection, corporate disputes or due diligence.

“People need to understand that Russia and other countries in particular act differently now and how vulnerable they can be to unknowingly committing serious crimes,” he said.

The warning followed a rare public intervention after MI6’s new chief, Blaise Metreweli, recently warned that Britain was entering an ‘age of uncertainty’ as hostile states rewrote the rules of engagement.

Security officials believe the threat from foreign proxies will intensify against a backdrop of global instability, the war in Ukraine and the mass expulsion of foreign intelligence officers from the UK following the Salisbury Novichok poisoning.

It comes after plans for China’s proposed new ‘mega embassy’ by the Tower of London were blocked on security grounds by the last Tory government but were tabled again by Sir Keir Starmer, who hopes to fly to China for trade talks at the end of the month.

Image: Concept plans for new Chinese ‘mega embassy’ on site of former Royal Mint

The Mail on Sunday led the way to reveal British security experts’ concerns about the planned development last year; these include the existence of a ‘spy dungeon’ in the basement close to sensitive City data cables.

Security sources denied reports that they had abandoned concerns about the embassy and said EU countries had raised fears that the embassy could become a hub not only for Chinese intelligence operations in the UK but also for espionage activities across Europe.

A source said: ‘At the moment its people are scattered across different parts of the capital. This makes it easier for us to track them. They are wandering around.

‘They use electronic communications to communicate. We can see them with our own eyes. But if their operations are centralized in this giant hub, it will become much more difficult to penetrate them.’

The source added: ‘They are obsessed with infiltrating Parliament. This is the main focus of its activities in the UK.

‘We’re not sure if this is because they misinterpret how effective the average MP is. But they still spend huge amounts of time and assets trying to get into the House of Commons and the House of Lords. This will intensify even more if the super embassy is given the green light.’