Six Britons acting for the Wagner mercenary group linked to Russia have been sentenced to prison for setting fire to a London-based storage unit that was holding humanitarian aid intended for Ukraine.
Sentencing the men, the judge at the central criminal court stated that they had orchestrated a “campaign of terrorism and sabotage” in the interests of the Russian government.
Dylan Earl was given a seventeen-year jail term with an extra six-year period on supervised release due to his “primary involvement”. Another defendant, Jake Reeves, a resident of Croydon, South London, was sentenced to twelve years in jail with an additional year on extended licence. Their admitted crimes resulted in them being the initial persons to be convicted under the National Security Act 2023.
Jakeem Rose, aged 23, also a Croydon resident, was jailed for eight years and 10 months. Nii Mensah, from Thornton Heath, south London, was given nine years and Ugnius Asmena, 21, who was without a fixed address, was handed seven years in prison. These three individuals were each convicted of serious fire-setting and received a further year on extended licence by the court.
Ashton Evans, a 20-year-old individual involved in drug trafficking from Newport in Gwent, was jailed for nine years imprisonment with an extra year on extended licence after being found guilty of failing to disclose information about terrorist acts connected to a separate scheme in Mayfair.
The deliberate fire on a Leyton-based storage facility in East London endangered sixty fire service personnel and caused £1m in damage in March last year.
The court heard that the 21-year-old Earl and the 24-year-old Reeves remained in their residences while coordinating the incident for the Wagner mercenary organization, acting on behalf of the Russian Federation.
The group targeted the storage facility because it was being used to supply humanitarian aid and satellite communication gear to Ukraine.
When the identical Ukrainian firm was hit by an arson attack 10 days later in the Spanish capital, investigators from the Metropolitan Police's anti-terror unit assumed control of the probe.
When Earl was arrested, police analysis of his mobile phone revealed he had recordings of the storage facility blaze being initiated and was in contact with the Wagner organization on the Telegram messaging app, via an account with the usernames ‘Privet Bot’ and ‘Lucky Strike alias’.
Some of the messages indicated that preliminary surveillance for additional operations, involving fire-related incidents at a restaurant and wine shop in Mayfair belonging to the Russian dissident Evgeny Chichvarkin had already been carried out. The use of explosives to harm structures was also deliberated.
Investigators found that Earl was also considering the potential abduction of Chichvarkin and “exiling him back to Russia to face prison”.
The drug dealer from Elmesthorpe in Leicestershire had talked about another potential attack in the Czech Republic.
In a residence inspection, law enforcement found a flag of Russia, over twenty thousand pounds in currency and cocaine with a street value of about £34,000.
The court heard he was a member of numerous channels promoting Russian propaganda and was driven by “simple and ugly greed”.
“This case is about the efforts of the Russian Federation to gain pernicious global influence using online platforms to enlist saboteurs vast distances from Moscow.”
She determined the fire incident had a “link to terrorism” irrespective of if the perpetrators were aware of it. The Wagner group is banned by the British authorities as a terrorist organisation.
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