Four British men have been found guilty of offences linked to a sabotage campaign conducted in the UK by Russian Wagner mercenaries after they were recruited online.
The men set fire to a warehouse, destroying more than £100,000 worth of equipment, including vital satellite equipment belonging to Elon Musk’s Starlink communications company, which was destined for Ukraine.
The warehouse attack was livestreamed over Facetime to the men’s British recruiter who was reporting back to the Russians. He set the video to music as he shared it with his friends.
The men were then tasked to burn down an exclusive restaurant and wine dealership in Mayfair and to kidnap the billionaire owner, a Russian dissident who has driven lorries carrying aid to Ukraine.
Evgeny Chichvarkin told police that he had made his money by co-founding a mobile phone business in Russia before becoming an ‘enemy of the state’ after speaking out against the regime.
The ‘architect’ of the plot was Dylan Earl, 21, a builder and part-time drug dealer lived with his parents in a large detached house in the Leicestershire countryside. He and Jake Reeves, 23, were paid to destroy equipment.
Earl and Reeves admitted aggravated arson and an offence under the National Security Act.
Ringleader Earl was the first person to be charged under Section 18 of the new National Security Act brought in last year to target those working secretly for hostile states within the UK.
Fire at the warehouse in Leyton was carried out by the gang and destroyed more than £100,000 of kit
Video of the arson attack was streamed online and carried out by a group hired by Wagner
Dylan Earl, 20, was the ringleader of the group, a court previously heard. He admitted
He boasted he could build a ‘link’ between the Wagner Group, IRA and the Irish Kinahan crime cartel.
Nii Kojo Mensah, 23, Jakeem Barrington Rose, 23, and Ugnius Asmena, 20, denied aggravated arson but were convicted today after 21 hours and 55 minutes of jury deliberation.
Paul English, 61, denied and was cleared of aggravated arson.
Welsh drug dealer Ashton Evans, 20, was convicted of one count of failure to disclose information to police about terrorist acts but was cleared of a second count after denying the charge.
Earl was the mastermind of the plot. He joined a Telegram ‘broadcast channel’ called Grey Zone which was established in 2022 as a mouthpiece for Wagner Group. It had 500,000 members and published regular posts inviting people in European countries to join Russia’s fight in Ukraine.
On March 2 last year Earl told a Telegram contact called ‘Minsk KGB’, who was in Russia: ‘I been wanting to come Russia. I need a fresh start bro.
‘Do I need to be able to speak Russian though because that’s not the best? Litch [literally] know 30 words if that.’
On March 15, Earl was questioned by what appeared to be a Wagner automated chatbot using the name ‘Privet Bot’ which messaged in Russian, that Earl then put through online translation.
The bot messaged: ‘Hello friend. How are you? We would like you to help us in Europe. What can you do in Europe, what actions? We need those who are our kindred spirit.’
Later it added: ‘By the way we have our first task for you. The maps show that there are a few buildings at this address, there are warehouses among them. We’ll start with something simple – from simple to complicated.’
On March 19 at 6.21pm, the Privet Bot contact added: ‘Will you please see the serial Americans,’ adding: ‘It will be your manual.’
Jake Reeves, of Croydon, pleaded guilty to agreeing to accept a material benefit from a foreign intelligence service under the National Security Act 2023
Gang members Jakeem Barrington Rose, 23 (left) and Nii Kojo Mensah, 23, have both been convicted today
Ugnius Asmena, 20, had denied aggravated arson but was convicted today after 21 hours and 55 minutes of jury deliberation. Also convicted was Welsh drug dealer Ashton Evans, 20 (right)
Pictured is the aftermath of the blaze that ripped through the warehouse in Leyton
The series was an American spy drama set in the Cold War about two Soviet KGB intelligence officers in Washington and the next day, the messager added: ‘The idea is like that. You need to organise partisan cells in the country and in Europe and think of a name for your movement.’
On the evening of March 20 last year, just three weeks after the first contact, Earl recruited four men who set fire to a warehouse on the Cromwell Industrial Estate in Leyton, East London.
Jake Reeves, 23, from Croydon, South London, was the step-son of a police officer who failed most his GCSEs and was working as an aircraft cleaner at Gatwick.
He became obsessed with the gangster video role-play game Grand Theft Auto and began volunteering for criminal jobs on a Telegram group chat called Violent Wettings – slang for stabbings.
Reeves then subcontracted the job again to Jakeem Rose and Nii Kojo Mensah, both aged 23, from Thornton Heath, South London, his former college mates.
Mensah’s cousin was apparently a member of STK, a south London gang and drill rap group that had hundreds of thousands of views for their music.
At 4.14pm on March 20, Reeves messaged Earl saying: ‘Yhh mums [honestly] it’ll get done if you’re serious bro.’ Twelve minutes later, he added: ‘My guys on it.’
Ugnius Asmena, 20, a Lithuanian-born man who was living with his drug addicted mother in a squat in Roehampton, South London, volunteered to find the driver, recruiting Paul English, 61, who lived in a flat across the road, offering him £500.
By 10pm that evening English and Asmena were driving from Roehampton, south west London, to Mensah’s address and from there, north to Leyton.
English used a red Kia Picanto that had to be bump started and had a set of pliers to turn the ignition key but it was registered in his own name and it took police a matter of days to track him down and from there establish the identity of the rest of the arson cell.
However, the arsonists, who were promised thousands of pounds, forgot to film the warehouse burning down and were never paid for the attack.
Earl was scolded by the Russians for not telling them he was going ahead with the plan: ‘The next fire has to be definitely approved and you have to say in advance the place and the time.’
In the end they never approved the Mayfair plot prompting Earl to tell them on April 9: ‘I know I can be the best spy you have ever seen. Everything you want in my country I will do immediately.’
Earl admitted that ‘in my country they call us terrorists” but added ‘I know that is not true’ and promised ‘1000s of men available in Europe.’
He was arrested the next day in the car park of a B and Q home improvement store in Hinckley, Leicestershire.
Duncan Penny KC, prosecuting, said the four men in court ‘may have been ignorant’ of the Russians’ influence and their motive ‘may have been good old-fashioned greed.’
‘For others, however, it appears to have been both political and ideological,’ he added.
Earl pleaded guilty to aggravated arson and preparing an act under the National Security Act and Reeves pleaded guilty to aggravated arson and agreeing to accept money from a foreign intelligence service.
Three of the men who went to the warehouse denied aggravated arson but were found guilty after a month-long trial. English was acquitted after telling police he thought they needed the petrol to pick up a car or a motorbike.
Ashton Evans, 20, an IT student and part-time drug dealer from Newport, Gwent, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about terrorist acts after Earl attempted to recruit him for the Mayfair attack.
Dmitrijus Paulauskas, 22, a Lithuanian-born university student from Croydon who admitted supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was acquitted of failing to inform after telling the jury he thought Reeves, a schoolfriend, was a fantasist.
Earl and Evans also pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply.
When police raided Earl’s home they found £20,070 in cash, a screenshot on his phone showing £58,425 in cryptocurrency in a Ledger Nano wallet and 885 grams of cocaine in five wholesale deals with a street value of £34,220.
At Earl’s home they discovered £1,500 in cash wrapped in a £50 note and concealed in a cushion in his bed along with 22 snap seals bags containing 8.26 grammes of cocaine at 20 per cent purity with a street value of up to £550.
CCTV caught Jakeem Rose and Kojo Mensah as they climbed over a wall and into the Cromwell Industrial Estate in Leyton, East London at about 11.40pm, on the evening of March 20 last year.
Their target was the base for a parcel delivery company and a logistics firm which were delivering goods to Eastern Europe and former Soviet countries, including Ukraine.
The businesses were also involved in organising humanitarian aid efforts to support Ukraine.
Unit 1 was occupied by a company called Oddisey Ltd. Oddisey Ltd, which receives and delivers packages ordered by customers mainly based in post-Soviet countries, owned by Mikhail Boikov and Jelena Boikova.
It handled, stored and delivered to Ukraine numerous packages containing Starlink satellite devices and generators.
Unit 2 was occupied by a company called Meest UK Ltd, the UK arm of a Ukrainian-based shipping company, of which Mikhail Boikov was a director.
Meest UK Ltd received between two and four pallets of goods per day and each pallet would contain 20 to 30 Starlink devices – a total of up to 120 a day.
A lorry carrying goods for Ukraine would leave the warehouses once or twice a week, each containing between 1,500 and 1,800 parcels.
Rose recorded clips of the journey to the warehouse in English’s car which were later found on his phone
CCTV showed him pouring petrol around the outside of the warehouse and using a rag to light it, filmed by Mensah, who was feeding the footage back to Dylan Earl.
The men then ran back to the wall and used a wheeled bin to climb back over, where they were picked up by English and Asminah.
However, Rose had left his ‘Rambo’ knife, with his DNA on it, on the ground near the wall which he had jumped over with Mensah.
Yevhen Harasym was watching a film in the cab of his lorry, parked next to the warehouse, with the curtains drawn.
He suddenly became aware of flames licking up the building next to the vehicle and leapt out of the cab, grabbing a fire extinguisher from a compartment underneath the lorry, in a desperate effort to put out the fire before it burned down the whole warehouse.
Eight fire engines and 60 firefighters were required to attend the scene. Over £100,000 worth of damage was done to goods and more than £1m in damage to the buildings.
Around 50 per cent of the stock stored in Units 1 and 2 was destroyed in the fire.
The warehouse was just yards from an apartment block and domestic houses, causing prosecutors to claim the defendants were reckless in putting lives at risk, despite admissions of arson.
The second target – Hide restaurant and Hedonism wine dealers – employ 200 people and are valued in excess of £30 million. There is residential accommodation above both premises, the court was told.
Kaiyan Oliveira, who used the online name NazioMusic, was caught on CCTV as he conducted surveillance on the targets on the evening of March 25.
Mensah and Rose forgot to take a video as proof of the attack and were asked to go back.
Reeves, who was using the name ‘Vex’, messaged Asmena who was in the front passenger seat of the Kia Picanto: ‘They need vid to get paid.’
Asmena replied: ‘They want us to go back.’
‘To the warehouse?’ Reeves asked.
‘Yes,’ Asmena said
Reeves said: ‘WTF. Go G. Quick G. They need vid.’
However, Asmena told him: ‘It’s on fire. Moms [honestly] they did it, they forgot to record. It will be on the news.’
A few hours after the attack Mensah messaged Earl to say ‘Bro lol [laughs out loud]. It’s on the news. Read article bro. We dun damageee.’
However, the Russians never paid the full amount and the next day Mensah messaged Earl: ‘Bro it’s f**king burnt. We did some damage. U said u will pay on consider damage. Just be reasonable.’
Mensah also discussed the warehouse attack with Reeves saying: ‘Bro if anyone getting arrested first it will be the old man and his boy. Bro he went out his car to buy petrol in a jerry can, paid for it plus drove to the scene, it a legit car. He’s involved no matter what.’
On March 24 as Earl sought recruits for the next attack in central London, he told Reeves: ‘I have two jobs for them after, where they will make 4-6k per one for way easier jobs than this’ he added: ‘London: £1000 East Warehouse £5000 West Wine Shop £5000 West Restaurant Total £11000.’
Earl told him: ‘Trust bro, western mind is confused dk wag1 [don’t know what’s going on]. Ukraine been shelling pro Russian towns since 014. Azov u can Google, Ukrainian neo-Nazi army brigade.’
On March 30 Reeves referred to ‘boom’ for ‘5k’ – said to be a reference to an explosion – and ‘napping’ for ’50k’ – said to be a reference to kidnapping the dissident.
On April 3, Reeves messaged Mensah: ‘YK [you know] anyone that will do this in Mayfair to a wine shop 5k upfront, 20-30k payout but me n u take a cut.’
He sent a video of an arson attack and added: ‘But has to be done like that.’
Mensah told him: ‘Bro that’s tapped [crazy]. I’ll ask about.’
Reeves replied: ‘Sweet bro.’
