Just before 8pm one evening in September 2021, two men began an unusual conversation on the Telegram messaging app: how to kidnap a Russian fugitive they believed to be hiding in Montenegro.
One correspondent was Orlin Roussev, a Bulgarian IT expert who was in his home office in Great Yarmouth, a faded seaside town in the east of England. The other was Jan Marsalek, one of the most wanted men in Europe, the former chief operating officer of the fraudulent German payments company Wirecard, which had collapsed the year before.
Having fled to Russia to avoid prosecution, Marsalek now appeared to be working full time as a consultant to the country’s military intelligence (GRU) and domestic intelligence (FSB) spy agencies. Together with Roussev, he was running a network of Bulgarian spies based in the UK.