Nov 28- Russian spies in Sweden: revelations by Bellingcat's Eliot Higgins
Thread published on November 26, 2022
Russian spies in Sweden: revelations by Bellingcat’s Eliot Higgins
This week, a Russian couple living in Sweden for the past 20 years were arrested, with the husband detained under suspicion of working for the Russian intelligence services. Christo Grozev did some digging and made some interesting discoveries about their neighbours in Moscow.
The husband, wife and a family member were registered as owners of the flat in October 1999, located at Zorge street 36 in Moscow. It’s unclear if they ever lived in the apartment, as the couple moved to Sweden soon afterwards.
This building is packed full of interesting residents. The apartment number of the couple arrested in Sweden is 282, and just down the corridor is apartment 288, the home of Denis Sergeev, the 3rd suspect in the Skripal poisoning:
Moritz Rakuszitzky, Third Suspect in Skripal Poisoning Identified as Denis Sergeev, High-Ranking GRU Officer- Bellingcat
Major General Andrey Averyanov, the head of the GRU’s Unit 29155, the clandestine sabotage and assassination behind multiple arms depot explosions and poisonings, including the Skripal and Emelian Gebrev poisonings, is also a resident in the same building:
According to documents from the Swedish District Court and the police, the husband (pictured below) detained in Sweden is said to have started intelligence activities against the USA in 2013, and then against Sweden in July 2014.
The couple owned a number of companies in Sweden, including companies that dealt with ship and aircraft equipment, computers and IT services, program development and financing of commercial projects.
For several years, one of these companies was in fact controlled by a retired GRU colonel, through a company based in Cyprus. The man, now in his 70s, allowed himself to be interviewed under his full name a couple of years ago in the book "ГРУ. Поединок с черными половекнами"
Many years earlier, his name appeared in the United States: During a hearing in the Senate in 1983, a senator asked to be presented with a list of all Soviet diplomats who, in the period 1974 to 1983, had been expelled for espionage, from all countries throughout the world.
The couple also have a family connection to a former head of Swedish intelligence. The man worked as head of the Military Security and Intelligence Service, MUST, for several years. The family connection between the couple and the former MUST boss was established after he retired.
