Revealed: oligarchs spied on UK lawyers who ran Serious Fraud Office cases | Surveillance

Oligarklar, who was under investigation by the Business Empire serious fraud office, spied of lawyers who conducted some of the most sensitive criminal cases of the UK.

Guardian took the surveillance images of former SFO prosecutors taken by hired spies. It is said that their aims collected information about the activities of the agency, identified their resources and won “leverage”.

The oligarks, which were supported by the Vladimir Putin regime, were conducting an aggressive counter attack against a SFO investigation against suspicious corruption and fraud at that time, which is an important case that the agency ultimately fell.

Andy Slaughter, a deputy of the Parliament of Justice Committee of the Parliament, said, “It is deeply uncomfortable that individuals with serious fraud investigations are deeply ignored by organizations.” “Hunter was hunted.”

The surveillance started in 2019. It is unclear when or when it ends. As law enforcement officers who have the most challenging white -collar criminal cases against multinational companies and billionaires, SFO is often faced with good financed law firms and even cyber attacks. However, this is believed to have emerged for the first time of former SFO prosecutors.

The lawyers of the Oligarchs mining company did not object to the surveillance. However, while preparing for the lawsuits against SFO, they said that any “investigation özengir towards targets was legal.

‘We are not fair’

On Saturday, March 7, 2020, SFO prosecutor SFO prosecutor Tom Martin’s house appeared in a car outside his house. At 10.39 in the morning, he was wearing jeans from the target front door and Wolverhampton Wanders Hoodie. It was a very important day: Martin was taking his little son to football for the first time.

Martin conducted complex, transnational bribery investigations at SFO. Although he worked in the case of oligarchs, he felt that he would be an attractive target for anyone who wanted intelligence at the agency.

Known by his colleagues as a charismatic leader, Martin brought a claim of a labor court on the dismissal of 2018 during the power struggle with the American prosecutors – the claim that he would win. From the scope of the press, it was clear that SFO knew the internal affairs and fell badly with its administration.

Over the years, Martin had followed strong suspects, sometimes he thought that he had been watched. However, none of his fears were verified. Guardian, oligarchs’ spies taken by the surveillance images of his house showed “absolutely horrified,” he said. Im I’m there with my friend, ”he said. “We are not a fair game.”

If the operators are looking for “compromats ,, Martin said that Russia is the term that compromises on the materials that can be used to apply pressure, and that there is nothing to be except for the passion for model trains.

“An attack on the rule of this law,” he said. “You do not try to defend yourself in a court, you are trying to shift the rates in your favor.”

‘The steep lawyer you can meet’

The surveillance reached the country.

In a rural village, oligarchs operators spied to a former metropolitan police officer Mike Walsh. After leaving the power in the late 1990s, Walsh moved to the private intelligence industry. A customer was fighting with oligments Corporation on some African mines. In May 2019, Spies followed Walsh, who had retired at that time, and photographed him as he took off the garbage boxes.

Other objectives, as members of the SFO team oligarks, as members of the British law enforcement officers held high -level positions.

James Coussey was deemed worthy of the OBE after trying to condemn the perpetrators of financial crimes after decades. Three years later, it was taken to SFO for a last homework: To investigate suspicious fraud and bribery at a mining company listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The three oligarks, known as the trio, were the founders and largest shareholders of the Eurasian Natural Resources Company (ENRC). From Kazakhstan to Congo, he had coal, chrome and cobalt mines. Every few days, revenues have made SFO larger than the annual budget.

The Coussey team followed the Swiss Banks, African Cleptocracy, Old Soviet dictatorships and Money trails between the Mayfair real estate market. In 2018, five years later, Coussey ended his career. SFO colleague and other surveillance target Martin, “I do not think you really want to retire,” he said. “He loved his job and did it in a really calm and stylish way.”

Until then, ENRC case Highest Betting Research History of SFO. Criminal charges were seen to be close. SFO’s prosecutors interviewed one of the oligarchs and the other groom.

Oligarchs and his companies rejected injustice. Enrc’s lawyers were on the counter attack. They claimed that Coussey mislead the evidence wrongly as part of the SPO claim against SFO. A judge could not find “intentionally or recklessly violations .. However, the legal procedure explained his identity as a member of Coussey’s investigation team and put it on the radar of Oligochs.

Coussey fell into unhealthy. The surveillance images of the spies are stamped at the time: a Monday morning in February 2020. Apart from his house, an old man looking at the pottery between a bald and a jersey and the body walk, the garage and a blue hatchback.

Coussey has died since then. Martin called him one of the prosecutors of his generation. Although he was a love for rude jokes, he was the ça the steep lawyer you can meet ”. “A tremendous service was provided to his country.”

‘About the Leverast’

SFO prosecutors entrusted with the authority to seize evidence are subjected to security veterinarians. In the agency, Martin was aware of the “close” cyber attacks.

It was the situation that the rest of the Coussey and the research team of the Oligarks of such sensitive oligarchs from a limited area of SFO’s headquarters in Trafalgar Square.

The richness of the trio, the sons of Central Asian states of the Soviet Union, began in the autumn of communism when he worked in a KGB business attempt in Moscow. They have used various private intelligence companies since they arrived in London in the mid -2000s.

MI5 and the UK Special Forces graduates of the black cube and effort Mossad and other Israeli intelligence and military services were former agents. These operators Targeted neil gerrardAn old Enrc lawyer, which a judge would find later, leaked to SFO while he milked the oligarch for wages. Both companies say they play no role in the supervision of former SFO prosecutors.

This supervision began in 2019, led by Dmitry Vozianov, a Russian advisor who manages “special situations için for oligarks. Vozianov eliminates threats to the commercial interests of its customers who control lawyers, spies and public relations experts. Faced with a SFO investigation, the trio hired him.

For this secret surveillance operation, Vozianov used a decorated veteran of the Parachute Regiment. Damian Ozenbrook served in Afghanistan, Northern Ireland and the Balkans. After leaving the army, he founded Blue Square Global, a private intelligence company.

Vozianov’s objectives, who were assigned to Ozenbrook, said, “Knowing what is going on in SFO”, a source with information about the operation and “If there is, what SFO uses whatever it is”. The source believes that this is “leverage ..

Vozianov did not respond to the request for comment. For Ozenbrook’s company, lawyers did not object to the former SFO prosecutors that their operators were spying on the instructions of Vozianov – but they did not serve SFO personnel.

Oligarchs operators watched John Gibson, a lawyer who carried out SFO’s ENRC investigation for four years. Gibson left SFO for a law firm in 2018. Two years later, a letter from the lawyers of ENRC in the US company Quinn Emanuel said that in September 2020, the National Theater met with a journalist in the underground parking lot.

A SFO spokesman said: “We have been aware of the risk of surveillance for years, and our first priority is always the safety and welfare of our colleagues. After leaving SFO, we note that former colleagues are about surveillance.”

In 2023, at the beginning of a Supreme Court Judge SFO’s investigation, the agency quit the case after determining that it was wrong to accept leaked materials from the Enrc lawyer. “Inadequate evidence,” he said to bring crimes.

Two of the oligarches died during the long struggle with the British law enforcement officers, and their bets passed to their heirs. Russian state banks that support them are now under sanctions. However, millions of people from the public wallet must be damaged.

While the surveillance was highly regulated by state institutions – SFO would need an operation to conduct an operation like oligarchs – not the surveillance by private companies. “Everything about this issue is ringing from the Russian connections to the participation of former Security Forces Operators.” He said that he said, “Wider issues for how it organizes special inspectors for the government,” he said.