The wild Russian plot to burn a London restaurant and kidnap its owner

Boston Globe

6 hours ago

The men were arrested before they carried out those orders, but not before they had completed a separate mission: setting fire to a Ukrainian-owned warehouse in East London in March 2024.
Thousands of messages discovered by police after the group's arrest, and made public during a monthlong trial at the Old Bailey courthouse in London, provide extraordinary insight into the workings of Russian operatives paying criminal gangs to conduct espionage and sabotage operations in Europe.
Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command, said the case was a 'clear example of an organization linked to the Russian state using 'proxies' to carry out very serious criminal activity in this country on their behalf.'
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On Tuesday, a jury found three men guilty of arson over the warehouse fire, and convicted a fourth man of failing to tell police about the plans for Chichvarkin and his businesses. The two ringleaders of the group, Dylan Earl and Jake Reeves, had already admitted their roles in the extraordinary plot.
The British cell started with Earl, a 21-year-old drug dealer based in the Midlands city of Leicester, who had become enamored with the Kremlin's cause and offered to build a network of 'hundreds of soldiers' to carry out its orders.
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Investigators believe he contacted Russian intelligence operatives on the Telegram app through a channel associated with the Wagner Group paramilitary organization. The British government and security services assess that the group has been under the control of Russian state agencies and intelligence services since a failed 2023 coup.
The Telegram channel had been posting appeals for international volunteers, directing them to contact an anonymous account for further instruction. On March 15, 2024, that account started messaging Earl.
'Hello friend,' began the exchange, before telling him: 'We would like you to help us in Europe.'
The following day, a discussion ensued about potential action. Because Earl deleted records of his contributions to the conversation, only the messages from his Russian handler were presented to the court.
'You said that you have like-minded people. Tell me more details,' the Russian account asked.
'Do you have access to firearms?' it later wrote, and then, 'Excellent! That's what we need. The task on this warehouse will be our first step.'
'We need people that you have across Europe and the U.K.,' the account wrote. 'We need those who are our kindred spirits.'
Within 24 hours of the Telegram chat starting, the Russian account issued its first order — an arson attack on two East London warehouses operated by a Ukrainian businessperson.
Earl told Reeves, 23, a contact living in South London, to find recruits for the mission. Then, on March 20, a 22-year-old called Jakeem Rose set fire to both units using gasoline and a burning rag. The act was streamed live on FaceTime to Earl by another man, Nii Kojo Mensah, 23, who recorded it on his phone. A third man, Ugnius Asmena, 20, waited in a getaway car.
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Rose and Mensah admitted arson but denied they recklessly endangered lives, while Asmena pleaded not guilty on the basis that he did not know an arson attack would take place. All three were convicted of the offense of arson endangering life.
The men were gone by the time that local police arrived at the burning units on an unassuming industrial estate.
A body-worn camera recorded one officer asking 'What is this place?' as flames tore through the warehouses, which contained Starlink satellite equipment and other supplies to be sent to Ukraine.
The fire, which caused more than 1 million pounds (about $1.36 million) in damage, was the first of what Earl's Russian handler described as 'lots of glorious jobs ahead.'
'We'll start with something simple,' the handler had promised. 'From simple to complicated.'
Next on the list was kidnapping Chichvarkin, the former owner of a Russian cellphone company who has publicly criticized Putin since moving to Britain.
On March 31, 2024, Earl told Reeves that there would be a 'big payment for this man if you capture him,' adding: 'You find this man, nap him, bring him to my location and I pay you there and then and we fix rest. This man needs to be exiled to Russia.'
Describing where the proposed 50,000-pound payment for the kidnapping would come from, Earl posted a Russian flag emoji in the chat. He offered another 10,000 pounds for setting fire to the Hide restaurant and Hedonism Wines, both owned by Chichvarkin.
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Earl asked Ashton Evans, 20, a drug-dealing contact based in Wales, to set up the arson. He noted that the targets were just minutes away from Buckingham Palace, anticipating that the fire would be 'worldwide news' and would draw in British intelligence agencies. But he assured Evans that if he 'moved clean' and deleted evidence, 'we won't have any issues ever.'
Evans was convicted Tuesday of failing to report his knowledge of the restaurant plot to police. He had earlier pleaded guilty of possessing cocaine with the intent to supply it to others.
As reconnaissance and preparations for the attack were carried out, Earl voiced even bigger ambitions to his Russian Telegram contact. They messaged about creating a new political 'partisan movement' in Britain, 'punishing Russian traitors,' setting more warehouses on fire, spying on the government and businesses, and obtaining leaked information databases.
But their plans were cut short when Earl was arrested in the parking lot of a hardware store April 10, 2024.
Earl and Reeves admitted organizing the warehouse arson. In relation to the restaurant plot, Earl pleaded guilty to preparing acts of serious violence on behalf of a foreign power, and Reeves pleaded guilty to 'agreeing to accept a material benefit from a foreign intelligence service.'
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