Hundreds of spies are based in the UK – spotting them is nearly impossible… but there’s 3 telltale signs including car
THOUSANDS of spies are likely to be currently based in the UK and hiding in Suburbia, but they’re nearly impossible to spot.
Sleeper agents are living seemingly innocuous lives, blending into neighbourhoods all while helping to facilitate espionage activities.
To a typical neighbour or local resident, living next to or near a spy is seemingly implausible – especially when their actions are seemingly normal.
But given the sheer volume of agents operating in Britain, there are some telltale signs worth knowing, experts have said.
These include particular vehicles to look out for, as well as other key indicators such as the visitors making their way into the Suburban homes.
It comes as five suspected Russian spies, all Bulgarian nationals, are currently awaiting trial in the UK accused of espionage.
A man was also last month found guilty of spying on London-based TV channel Iran International as part of an effort to assist terror plotters.
And last year MI5 revealed it believed Vladimir Putin had ordered up to 50 spies based in Britain to carry out a cyber attack.
Professor Anthony Glees, an expert in security and intelligence Emeritus Professor at the University of Buckingham, has revealed some of the telltale signs for unsuspecting members of the public to be on the lookout for.
He believes thousands of spies from other countries, including China, are also currently based in Britain.
The academic pointed to the UK’s standing in the world having made it an “one of the most targeted nations in the world” for countries “trying to use our standing for their own purposes”.
Prof Glees told The Sun: “It’s about stealing secrets and trying to subvert intentions in the UK.
“The UK for many reasons is one of the most targeted nations in the world. We were the first to have an empire and first to understand the importance of new tech and wireless cables.
“At the moment for various reasons we have in this country been in some disarray, much the same in the US, and that has made us an a more attractive target for people who want to use our standing in the world for their own purposes.
“We need to be alert to that and hope those we pay to care from those trying to undermine us are doing their job.”
‘We’re talking about thousands of spies’
The security expert suggested there are likely to be hundreds of spies currently based in the UK, though spotting them is evidently not simplistic.
He added: “We are talking about thousands of spies. Each of those people will live next to someone, but it is very difficult to identify these people, certainly in the short term.
“If you’ve got somebody who has fit a car that someone like them shouldn’t be able to afford, that is a giveaway – but it is very difficult.
“The only other telltale sign is would be money and people always coming round. That’s really what I would say.”
His comments were echoed by Ex-British military intelligence officer Col Philip Ingram MBE, who said British authorities are only now “beginning to wake up” to the reality of the threat from “thousands” of sleeper agents operating in the UK.
Speaking to the Sun Online in August, he said: “They recruit and put them in as effectively ‘clean skins’ with no official connection to intelligence services and ask them to integrate into society.”
It comes as award-winning Vanya Gaberova, 29, is among five people now accused of espionage in the UK on behalf of Putin’s Russian regime.
Gaberova owned the Pretty Woman store in Acton, specialising in eyelashes, nails and eyebrows before her arrest in February.
She was rounded up with three men and another woman following a joint Met Police and MI5 investigation earlier this year.
Orlin Roussev, 45, Bizer Dzhambazov, 42, Katrin Ivanova, 32, Ivan Stoyanov, 31, are also accused of espionage.
They are charged with conspiring to gather information that would be useful to an enemy between August 2020 and February this year.
At a hearing at the Old Bailey last month, Mr Justice Jeremy Baker formally joined the identity documents and spying conspiracy cases and set a trial for October 28 next year.
They are alleged to be part of a “network” conducting surveillance on behalf of the Russian state.
The court was told that a large part took place abroad but co-ordination took place in the UK.
The defendants are accused of conspiring to collect information with “another person known as Jan Marsalek and others unknown”.
All defendants are yet to enter a plea to the charges.
Meanwhile, MI5 boss Ken McCallum told an event in California in October that Chinese spies have attempted to make contact with more than 20,000 people in the UK via online channels.
He described a “sustained campaign on a pretty epic scale” and detailed how China has made economic espionage “a central component of its national strategy”, The Independent reports.
Security expert Will Geddes, founder of International Corporate Protection, also told The Sun Online that sleeper agents are operating on a “huge” scale in Britain.
He said: “There is an agreement where most countries will declare who is there and how many intelligence officers are located in a country.
“But all countries will have intelligence officers who are not declared.
“They will embed themselves within communities and look like a normal foreign national. A lot of Bulgarians are targeted by Russian agencies to work on their behalf.”
Britain has previously been targeted by Russian agents in recent years – most notoriously the nerve agent attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury in 2018.
The father, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the British intelligence agencies, and his daughter were found slumped on a bench in a “catatonic state” and spent weeks critically ill in hospital.
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, later revealed to be using pseudonyms and whose actual names were Dr Alexander Mishkin and Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, are accused of carrying out the attack.
Former Russian agent Litvinenko, an arch critic of Putin, was also poisoned when radioactive polonium was placed in his tea in 2006.
The sinister attack was carried out at a Mayfair hotel in London.