Suspected spies for Russia arrested and charged in security investigation

Three alleged spies for Russia have been arrested and charged as part of a major national security investigation.

Orlin Roussev, Biser Dzhambazov and Katrin Ivanova were arrested in February under the Official Secrets Act after being found with multiple passports from different countries.

The trio, all from Bulgaria, remain in custody and will appear at the Old Bailey on a date still to be agreed.

They had 19 passports, driving licences, identity cards and residence permits from countries including the UK, France, Italy, Bulgaria, Spain, Greece, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.

They have been charged with possession of false identity documents with improper intention.

Ivanova, 32, and Dzhambazov, 42, lived at a home in Harrow, north London, while Roussev, 45, was arrested at his address in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.

The other two arrested - a 31-year-old man from west London and a 29-year-old woman from North London - have been released on bail until September.

Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorism command is leading the investigation.

A former British spy has told Sky News that producing multiple types of identification is "extremely helpful and useful... from a counterintelligence perspective".

Christopher Steele, who ran the Russia desk at MI6 in London between 2006 and 2009 and worked there in the 1990s, said: "I think it's early days yet to make any definitive judgements about what's behind this. Clearly, the government appears to believe that they were working for the Russian state, Russian intelligence."

He added: "It's an impressive [police] operation. It will act as a deterrent, I think, for others.

"But of course Russia is effectively at war for the moment and Russia and Putin will stop at very little to pursue their state objectives, whether it's on the battlefield or in the sort of espionage elements of areas of the UK and Europe."

Harry Ferguson, a former intelligence officer for MI6, questioned how much evidence authorities had managed to find against Roussev, Dzhambazov and Ivanova as the charge against them is "the equivalent of speeding in a 30mph zone".

He told Sky News: "There is no allegation that they have stolen any information...it appears in six months MI5 and the police have failed to develop those leads."