Three held on suspicion of helping Russian intelligence

Three men have been arrested in London on suspicion of aiding Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the Metropolitan Police said.

Three men, aged 48, 45 and 44, were arrested at addresses in west and central London. Searches continue at these addresses and another address in west London.

They were arrested on suspicion of aiding a foreign intelligence service, namely Russia, under section 3 of the National Security Act (NSA) 2023, as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged crimes under the law carried out by counter-terrorism police.

The arrests come as police work to crack down on a growing number of “proxies” recruited by foreign intelligence services, police said.

Major Dominic Murphy, head of London Counter Terrorism Police, said the Met was seeing increasing numbers of these.

“Anyone in the UK who is encouraged to engage in criminal activity on behalf of a foreign state and may be contacted should think twice,” he said.

“Such activities will be investigated and anyone found to be involved can expect to be prosecuted, with potentially very serious consequences for those convicted.”

The arrests follow the arrest of two men and a woman in Essex last month on suspicion of spying for Russia.

In May, six Bulgarians were jailed in the UK and across Europe for spying for the Kremlin.

And in July three men were convicted of an arson attack on a Ukraine-linked warehouse in London after being recruited by the Russian Wagner mercenary group.

The Wagner group is a private military organization that acts on behalf of the Russian state. The UK government banned it as a terrorist organization in September 2023.

MI6 has launched its own special portal on the dark web in the hope of attracting new spies online, particularly from Russia.

Earlier this month, MI5 boss Sir Ken McCallum said the intelligence agency was dealing with near-record terrorism investigations and soaring state threats.

He said state threats from Russia, China and Iran had increased and MI5 had seen a 35% increase in the number of people it investigated in the last year.