Episode 7: From Russia With Love

Summary

Hot Money: Agent of Chaos – Episode 7: From Russia With Love

Release Date: July 22, 2025
Hosts: Pushkin Industries & Financial Times
Title: Hot Money: Agent of Chaos – From Russia With Love

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Introduction

In the seventh episode of Hot Money: Agent of Chaos, reporter Sam Jones delves deeper into the enigmatic figure of Jan Marsalek, the former COO of Wirecard, whose disappearance following the company's €2 billion fraud scandal in 2020 marked the beginning of a labyrinthine investigation into espionage and covert operations. This episode uncovers Marsalek's transformation from a corporate fraudster to a Russian intelligence operative, revealing a complex web of plots aimed at destabilizing geopolitical landscapes across Europe.

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The Great Yarmouth Raid and Orlin Rusev’s Arrest

Sam Jones begins his exploration in Great Yarmouth, a seemingly incongruous seaside town that becomes the focal point of Marsalek's espionage activities. Accompanied by his producer Peggy, Jones visits the Haydee guest house on Prince's Road, where a dramatic raid unfolded on a cold February morning in 2023.

Moira Scott, local landlady:

"[08:08] ... I saw these men or women, all blacked out with blazers on."

Early that morning, heavily armed police stormed the building, apprehending Orlin Rusev, a Bulgarian national who played a pivotal role in Marsalek’s intelligence operations. Body cam footage captures Rusev’s terrified state as he is restrained by officers:

"[09:04] Orlin Rusev: I think it's the wrong place."

---

Unveiling the Spy Ring: Telegram Messages

Inside the Haydee, Jones discovers a hoard of surveillance equipment and thousands of Telegram messages. These communications between Marsalek and Rusev reveal the extent of their espionage activities, showcasing Marsalek's ongoing influence and the strategic operations orchestrated from Moscow.

Sam Jones:

"[10:08] ... there are 300,000 Telegram messages in total. 80,000 alone are between Rusev and Marsalek."

These messages paint a picture of a loosely organized but ambitious spy ring, with Marsalek at the helm, coordinating various plots aimed at manipulating political outcomes and sowing chaos.

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Espionage Operations Detailed

The episode meticulously breaks down three major operations devised by Marsalek and his operatives:

1. Operation Against Kazakhstan: Marsalek, responding to Russia's concerns over Kazakhstan's shifting political alignment, devises a plan to destabilize the new Kazakh government.
   Moira Scott:

   "[21:48] ... creative ways to make their lives miserable."
   The plan included spreading deepfake pornography and setting up false narratives to create a diplomatic crisis, ultimately aiming to reinforce Russia’s influence over Kazakhstan.

2. Hate Symbol Operations in Europe: The spy ring was tasked with vandalizing public spaces with hate symbols, such as those associated with the Azov Brigade in Vienna.
   Helen Worrell:

   "[26:09] ... amplify the Kremlin's arguments and sort of propaganda."

   These actions were intended to fuel anti-Ukrainian sentiment and justify Russia’s military actions in the region.

3. Tracking Ukrainian Soldiers in Germany: An ambitious plan involved deploying an IMSI catcher to monitor and locate Ukrainian soldiers trained with NATO’s advanced air defense systems.
   Moira Scott:

   "[27:11] ... who have asked for help in Germany with mobile tracking."

   The operation was narrowly averted when Orlin Rusev was apprehended hours before activation.

---

Insights from the Espionage Trial

The trial of Orlin Rusev and his accomplices marked the largest public espionage trial in modern UK history. Helen Worrell, a colleague from the Financial Times, provides critical insights into the proceedings:

Helen Worrell:

"[11:30] It's very rare that they get to prosecute espionage, so this is a huge deal."

She highlights Marsalek’s role as the mastermind behind the operations, despite his physical absence, emphasizing the sophisticated and strategic nature of his espionage endeavors.

Sam Jones:

"[12:07] ... message equivalent of the manosphere."

The courtroom revelations showcased the juxtaposition of amateurish operatives executing high-stakes missions, raising concerns about Russia's degrading espionage capabilities.

---

Interview with Orlin Rusev

A pivotal moment in the episode is the exclusive interview with Orlin Rusev, conducted remotely due to his need for police protection. Rusev recounts his forced allegiance to Marsalek and the challenges of evading Russian intelligence.

Orlin Rusev:

"[36:28] It was a choice between being killed or imprisoned."

He describes his harrowing escape from Russia in 2021, traversing a sunflower field into Ukraine, only to be ensnared again by the spy ring targeting him in Europe. Rusev’s reflections highlight the relentless pursuit by Russian intelligence and the psychological toll of living under constant threat.

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The Symbiotic Pursuit

The narrative draws a parallel between Marsalek’s operations in Russia and Rusev’s plight in Europe, illustrating a mirrored hunt where both sides are perpetually seeking to undermine each other.

Orlin Rusev:

"[41:48] We are like people who are hunting each other from different parts of the world."

This symmetry underscores the broader implications of espionage on international relations and personal lives, showcasing the pervasive reach of state-sponsored covert activities.

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Conclusion: Russia’s Out-of-Control Espionage Tactics

As the episode draws to a close, Sam Jones reflects on the chaotic and risky nature of Marsalek’s operations, suggesting that Russia’s espionage tactics have become increasingly unhinged and driven by a volatile mix of ambition and recklessness.

Helen Worrell:

"[43:41] Just shows that these people were motivated by money."

The episode posits that the disorder within Russia’s intelligence operations is not merely a byproduct of inefficiency but a deliberate strategy to manipulate and destabilize through unpredictable and high-risk schemes.

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Final Thoughts

Hot Money: Agent of Chaos – From Russia With Love offers a gripping examination of Jan Marsalek's descent from corporate fraud to orchestrating espionage operations for Russian intelligence. Through meticulous investigation, compelling interviews, and the revelation of clandestine plots, Sam Jones paints a vivid portrait of the intricate and often perilous world of modern espionage. This episode not only elucidates the personal saga of Marsalek and Rusev but also raises critical questions about the broader implications of state-sponsored covert activities in today's geopolitical climate.

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Notable Quotes:

• Sam Jones [04:16]: "Is this a reference, perhaps, to Natalia's Labina, the woman on the yacht with Jan all those years ago in Nice?"

• Moira Scott [12:46]: "Apologies. I was stuck between the Mafia, half of Russia's ambassadors, the gru, a dozen naked girls and some deep State guys whose names no one knows, who forced me to drink a bottle of gin."

• Orlin Rusev [40:44]: "So the death rate of investigative journalists is still much lower than in Ukrainian army. So we shouldn't be too depressed about the situation."

• Sam Jones [43:55]: "Only the rather alarming thing is that this chaos, this risk taking, it's by design."

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Hot Money continues to unravel the layers of financial crimes intertwined with international espionage, offering listeners a profound understanding of the shadowy forces shaping our global economy and security.

Transcript

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[Ryan Reynolds]

As a very valuable.

[Sam Jones]

Yeah, it's June 2022. Jan Marsalek is in Moscow. It's been almost two years since Wirecard was exposed as a fraud. And during these two years he's been in near constant contact with one person in particular via the secure messaging app Telegram. Right now, Marsilek is asking this person to if their regular courier can pick up something very important for him, something he has a hankering for dessert. We're going to read out his messages for you.

[Moira Scott]

On a personal note, would he have time to drop by the Sacher shop to buy two cakes for me?

[Sam Jones]

Marsalek is after one of the most famous inventions of his home Sachertorte chocolate cake. From the moment he fled Europe, this person he's asking about the cake has been around to help him. Life on the run hasn't always been easy for Marsalek and this friend he's tried, when he can, to offer some reassurance. Keep your chin up, he tells Marsalek. At least the Russian women are beautiful, especially the blondes. And Marsalek replies, don't tell me, I've been there.

[Moira Scott]

It's dangerous. And admittedly, I never fully recovered.

[Sam Jones]

Is this a reference, perhaps, to Natalia's Labina, the woman on the yacht with Jan all those years ago in Nice? For the most part, Marsalek seems in good spirits. He's not one to take anything too seriously, really, including being a fugitive.

[Moira Scott]

Being a wanted man helps to refine one's humour. It might just become a little darker.

[Sam Jones]

Marsalek's interlocutor has been far more than just a cake courier and wingman, however. He's helped Marsalek establish himself in Russia, sorted out his finances, organised his chaotic paperwork, and perhaps most importantly of all, he's also been a recruiter for Marsalek. When Marsalek took heel as a fraudster and was outed on the front page of the FT as a Russian asset, you might have thought the jig would be up, but it wasn't. The only life that was over for Marsalek, the one he permanently said goodbye to, was his ordinary one, his life in Munich, his corporate Persona. Because these telegram messages lay bare what Marsalek has continued to get up to on behalf of the Russian state. Since he disappeared from view, Marsalek has been running intelligence operations for Russia across Europe. Not just one kind of operation, a whole range of endeavors. Aggressive, seemingly unconnected, risky. In this episode, for the first time in this series, we get to hear from Marsalek directly, in his own words. Because these messages between Marsalek, his friend and others ended up in the hands of police when a spy ring run by Marsalek was caught and went on trial. I'm Sam Jones from the Financial Times and Pushkin Industries. This is hot money. Season 3 Agent of Chaos Episode 7 From Russia with Love so far, this story has taken me to Vienna, to Munich, to the south of France, to Tunis. But right now, here I am in Great Yarmouth. That's the sound of a tiny little train, one of those little toy trains going past that takes people from car parks to the seafront. Great Yarmouth is a seaside resort on the Norfolk coast, about three hours northeast of London. There's a beautiful sandy beach, a pleasure pier and a fairground. The seafront is lined with amusement arcades. A handful of grand buildings hint at former prosperity. But there hasn't been much money in the town for decades. It's the most incongruous place, given what happened here and how significant it was. But then again, in this kind of story, and in a lot of spy fiction too, half forgotten, liminal places like this are often at the heart of the matter. The terraced streets off the seafront are full of guest houses, but many of these are boarded up. My producer Peggy and I are here to see one guest house in particular on Prince's Road. The Haydee. There it is on the right. It's the white and blue one. Oh, here. Oh, at the end. Yeah, yeah, I see now. Windows are all shuttered, curtains all drawn. Opposite the Haydee, there's a pub. So we go in, hoping to find someone who can maybe tell us more about what happened here on Princes Road on a cold February morning in 2023. Moira Scott is the landlady. She had her inside seat.

[Moira Scott]

I turned up just before 9, always get the doors and straight away saw over the road that there was a big tent awning thing at the front of the building.

[Sam Jones]

Moira knows the rhythm of Great Yarmouth well and she's pretty unflappable.

[Moira Scott]

First of all, I thought someone might.

[Sam Jones]

Have been murdered, but I did think.

[Moira Scott]

Well, there's no ambulances or anything and there's no police cars. And then I saw these men or women, all blacked out with B. Clav was on.

[Sam Jones]

Earlier that morning, squads of police and security officials arrived at number 27, heavily armed and bashed the door in. Body cam footage of one of the officers shows police streaming into the building in the dawn light through dim rooms on the ground floor at the back, they found the person they were looking for.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Stay there.

[Sam Jones]

Orlin Rusev, a Bulgarian man. He looks terrified. His pupils are wide. The police officer pushes him up against a wall and holds him there. And in the background you can hear other officers stamping up the stairs. He STAMMERS to the officer restraining him.

[Orlin Rusev]

I think it's the wrong place.

[Sam Jones]

The Haiti is no longer a guest house. It's Rusev's home. And it's an Aladdin's cave, or perhaps more of a hoarder's lair. It's stacked high with boxes and clutter. One of the rooms at the back seems to be Rusev's office. It's packed full of what police later describe as a vast amount of computer and technical hardware. You've got a number of USBs on the desk that I can see here. And to the right of the desk there are a number of mobile phones.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Sam Jones]

Are all of these devices yours?

[Orlin Rusev]

I have purchased some on ebay and I'm repairing many of those.

[Sam Jones]

Rusev tells them he's running an IT repair business, but that's not true. Most of this equipment, it's for surveillance. And it's only later, when technical experts begin to pore through the stuff they've seized, that that they find the treasure. The telegram messages between Marsalek and his correspondent. Because Orlan Rusev is the cake courier, the fan of Russian blondes, the man who has served as Marcelek's right hand during his exile in Moscow. There are 300,000 Telegram messages in total. 80,000 alone are between Rusev and Marsalek and the rest are between Rusev and and the agents he'd recruited to do Marsalek's bidding. A year and nine months after the raid in Great Yarmouth, the biggest public espionage trial in modern UK history begins in London. All in Rusev is in the dock and alongside him are five others like him. They're all Bulgarian nationals who had been granted the right to live permanently in the uk. The Crown Prosecution Service accuses them of participating in a bewildering array of high stakes espionage operations on British soil and across Europe. My colleague Helen Worrell had a front row seat for it all. She spent years reporting on security for the ft.

[Helen Worrell]

It's very rare that they get to prosecute espionage, so this is a huge deal.

[Sam Jones]

There's one notable absence in the courtroom, of course.

[Helen Worrell]

I would say that Marsalek really was like a sort of ghost that haunted this trial. He was clearly the organizing mind and he was there, you know, in black and white in these telegram messages.

[Sam Jones]

The messages between Marsalek and Rusev are at the heart of the prosecution's evidence. What's striking about them at first glance, though, is that they're just like any other online conversation between two, admittedly slightly odd pals.

[Helen Worrell]

I mean, one thing that's quite funny is that he absolutely loves this bizarre laughing wombat emoji, which he uses constantly when Rusev says something that sort of tickles him.

[Sam Jones]

Now, I felt I needed to see this for myself, and I can actually confirm that it isn't a wombat, but a raccoon. Helen says she's no zoologist anyway, you.

[Helen Worrell]

Know, so they're sort of leering about women and there are often quite sort of long and tedious exchanges where they pontificate about geopolitics in quite a sort of boring way. You know, this is just the sort of message equivalent of the manosphere, as.

[Sam Jones]

In this choice piece of bravado from Marsalek.

[Moira Scott]

Apologies. I was stuck between the Mafia, half of Russia's ambassadors, the gru, a dozen naked girls and some deep State guys whose names no one knows, who forced me to drink a bottle of gin.

[Sam Jones]

The messages found at the Haiti also reveal a closeness between the two men. At New Year's, Marsalek effusively thanks his friend for his work and he signs.

[Moira Scott]

Off from Russia with love.

[Sam Jones]

But far more importantly, the message is exposed to Mar Marsalek and Rusev had working for them. And the more I learn about them, the more it makes me wonder how it could be that Russia, an undoubted espionage superpower, has ended up depending on people like this as its frontline foot soldiers. Let me take you through the org chart. Marsalek was at the top of the group, giving orders from Moscow in Great Yarmouth. Rusev was his number two, Marsalek's ideas guy, his operations man. And Rusev then sets things in motion via his man on the ground, his troop leader, if you will, a man called Bizer Zambezov, who he and Marsalek sometimes jokingly refer to as Jean Claude Van Damme. That's a reference to the 1990s movie star and Belgian beefcake. Zambazov lived in North London, and it was there that he collected four underlings who he, Rusev and Marsalek sometimes disparagingly referred to in their messages as the Minions, after the hapless yellow comic creatures from the Despicable Me films. None of them were professional intelligence operatives. By day, they had perfectly ordinary jobs a driver, a beautician, a decorator, a lab technician. Two of them are women, Katrin Ivanova and Vanya Gaborova. And Zambazov had rather complicated relationships with both of them.

[Helen Worrell]

He and Vanya were naked when they were arrested in bed together. So this is him and his girlfriend while his long term partner Katrina was at work at the time. And actually one of the more absurd things that came out in the trial was that he pretended to both women that he had brain cancer. So he sort of was playing them off against each other slightly. But he was also using this entirely fake diagnosis to essentially inveigle them into doing things that they didn't particularly want to do on the basis that he was too sick and that he was going through treatment. There was some completely extraordinary evidence where he was shown speaking to one of them on a sort of WhatsApp call. And he had wound toilet paper around his head to look like a bandage, sort of as if he had just recently had brain surgery.

[Sam Jones]

You might be thinking, as I am, that all of this is beginning to sound a bit more farcical than threatening more Keystone Cops than Casino Royale. Because when I think of what a good spy ring probably needs to work, the first things that spring to mind are skill, trust and loyalty. If you don't have those, then how can you hope to stay secret? These guys had far too little appetite for discretion. Sometimes they seemed to be a bit carried away by it all.

[Helen Worrell]

I think at some points they were sort of surprised by the excitement of it. There's a photograph that was shown in evidence of Gaburova using her Ray Ban.

[Sam Jones]

Spyglasses sunglasses that had been equipped with a miniature camera.

[Helen Worrell]

You know, she takes a photo of herself in a hotel mirror, sort of selfie in these glasses, and you can see that there is an element of glamour here.

[Sam Jones]

But here's the thing. Despite how amateurish the minions seem to be, the plots Marsalek and Rusev tasked them with were frighteningly ambitious.

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[Sam Jones]

In those thousands of telegram messages I told you about, Marsalek and his minions discussed a multitude of plots. Some stayed ideas in the ether, others were put into action in the real world. I'm going to tell you about three of them, which struck me because they were operations on the front line of Russia's shadow work to manipulate its allies, sow chaos amongst its enemies and silence its critics. To understand the first, you need to know a little bit about Kazakhstan, the largest former state of the USSR after Russia itself. Since independence, Kazakhstan has had a close but complicated relationship with its neighbour and former overlord. In 2019, when there was a change in government, Russia began to worry about Kazakhstan drifting out of its political orbit. Enter Jan Marsalek and the minions. Russia's intelligence services brief Marsalek on their problem. And Marsalek, he gets to work engineering a potential solution. With Rusev on the agenda, putting pressure on the new Kazakh president, making things hard for him close to home, literally, by even looking at ways to target his family. What Marsalek describes in a telegram message to Rusev.

[Moira Scott]

Creative ways to make their lives miserable.

[Sam Jones]

Marsalek spitballs some ideas, ways he can spread some nasty rumours.

[Moira Scott]

Maybe a deep fake porn video of the son of the president. Also a honey trap for the son when he is travelling in Europe. Could be a fun option.

[Sam Jones]

It sounds like these ideas are going down well in Moscow. When Marsalek writes to the gru, guys.

[Moira Scott]

Are saying it will be a drama in Kazakhstan if we publish this.

[Sam Jones]

To be clear, because this isn't immediately obvious, the messages show that the idea was to secretly create a problem and then offer a phony solution to it. To set up the president's son and then offer the president fake information about the people responsible. Because the end goal here was to actually strengthen diplomatic relationships between Russia and Kazakhstan, to make the new Kazakh government think it still needed Russia's help and that Russia was a beneficent ally. Thankfully for the president's son, Marsalek and Rusev eventually settle on a different course of action. An operation aimed at the Kazakh Embassy in London. An operation that would actually require a lot of careful planning, four false trails to be laid and a spectacular coup de thtre at the end to really grab the Kazakh government's attention. On paper, a really impressive piece of tradecraft with a lot required to pull it off. At the centre of the plan is a protest outside the embassy, but not just any protest, something really provocative. They discuss using drones to cover the embassy with 100 liters of pig's blood. They will make it look like the pig's blood has been sprayed by pro democracy protesters. This seems to get the green light because Marsalek and Rusev go on to agree a budget before discussing details like how can the blood be diluted so that it can be effectively sprayed and how can it be mixed to glow at night? Rusev seems to be making progress. One of the Minions has sent him videos of vials of blood. In a message to Marsalek, he tells him the vampire team are ready for tests. Marsalek responds, bloody glorious, literally. Zambazov and the minions, meanwhile, take it in turns to surveil the embassy to work out the best plan of attack, including using a drone. Rusev gets sent videos and photos from their covert reconnaissance. It's not just this protest, though. There's a whole hinter ground that Marsalek, Rusev and the Minions have worked on building out for the alleged perpetrators of this protest. They've drawn up letters from this fake group to senior American and European politicians urging them to sanction Kazakhstan. They've even booked out a room in a pub in London under the group's name to make it look like there was a real planning meeting taking place for their activists. Rusev and Zambazov discussed creating a scene at the pub bar to make sure witnesses remember something was going on. The porcine plan, luckily for London's public hygiene officers, never goes ahead. But the groundwork for the operation has been so successful that it alone is actually already bearing fruit.

[Moira Scott]

Glorious news from Kazakhstan. Kazakh intelligence is in a small panic and wants our Russian friends to investigate who this new group of activists is. They will provide money to bribe the Russians to investigate.

[Sam Jones]

The thing is, this operation, it's super high risk. And Marsalek seems to know it when.

[Moira Scott]

He tells don't want anyone outside a small circle in the GRU to know.

[Sam Jones]

About this Kazakh attack story, because obviously if the Kazakh government ever found out it was Marsalek behind this and the GRU behind him deliberately humiliating them in public and falsely claiming to be able to help them. Well, I guess they'd be rather peeved. I wonder how all this went down in the Kazakh capital, Astana, when it came out at the trial. Then again, when it comes to intelligence operations, one thing I've learned is that Russia very rarely seems to factor in the cost of public shame. In another operation, the Minions were being used to daub hate symbols at various public locations around Europe, including the Jewish Museum in Vienna.

[Helen Worrell]

They put up material that looks as if it's associated with the Azov Brigade, which is obviously this group of fighters in Ukraine who are said to have some sort of fascist or Nazi ideology. Although obviously that is entirely debatable and some people would claim it's not the case at all. But so they are very much amplifying the Kremlin's arguments and their sort of propaganda.

[Sam Jones]

The intent was to generate news stories that would support Russia's justification for its invasion of Ukraine. The narrative that Ukraine, Austria and Europe are turning fascist. Which brings me to an even more sensitive mission that the Minions were tasked with about a year after Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine, one which could actually help Russia on the battlefield. At this point in the war, Russia was struggling and Ukraine was pushing back. Marsalek sent Rusev a message. He told him he was likely to have a meeting tomorrow with our friends.

[Moira Scott]

Who have asked for help in Germany with mobile tracking.

[Sam Jones]

Marsalek tells Rusev that his friends, aka Russian military intelligence, want to try and locate 70 Ukrainians who have arrived in Germany for training at a US Air base. Marsalek thinks the Ukrainians are there to learn how to use Patriot Air defense systems, the missiles gifted to Ukraine by NATO allies to help defend Ukrainian civilians from Russian bombing raids.

[Moira Scott]

Marsalek asks, can we use the IMSI catcher in Germany? We need to spy on Ukrainians at a German military base.

[Sam Jones]

Now, you've probably never heard of an IMSI catcher and for good reason, because this is military grade technology worth More than £100,000. And what it does is hoover up cell phone data. It collects the individual signatures and locations of devices near it. Rusev, he's got one at home, he's excited to put it to use. It's just gathering dust, he tells Marsalek in his quote, Indiana Jones garage.

[Helen Worrell]

Now, you can't buy an IMSI device anywhere, you know, through reputable means. So we don't know how he got hold of this. And it wasn't just that he managed to purchase it. He also then sort of retrofitted it.

[Sam Jones]

Rusev tells Marsalek he can hide the IMSI catcher in his car.

[Helen Worrell]

So he managed to sort of buy a secondhand Chrysler and he fitted the IMZ into the boot of the Chrysler and he wired it up with a red button on the steering wheel that pretty much said, you know, press here to activate the mz. So he was Sort of hacking together these different bits of hardware that he'd managed to acquire.

[Sam Jones]

As the planning develops, Rusev sets up a telegram group chat to loop in the minions. He writes that he wants them to, quote, go on a tour in Germany for one or two days. Rusev wants Zambazov and a minyan to do a recce, to maybe see if there's an apartment they can rent near the base and a discreet spot close to its fence where he can park his imzimobile. The plan was to set up the IMSI catcher there for several weeks, to leave it running and to collect as much cell phone data from people on the base as possible, and then to give all this data to Russia so that Russia would be able to locate these trained Ukrainians and kill them. Now, if you were a military intelligence officer from the gru, I'm not sure you'd be able to undertake this operation, even with all the training and skills in the world. Because in recent years, European intelligence agencies have been doing all they can to track Russian agents at work on the continent, and they're pretty good at it. Hundreds of suspected Russian intelligence operatives have been expelled. But if you're a Bulgarian beautician from London or a mobile phone repairman from Great Yarmouth, who will be paying attention when you drive across a border or end up renting an Airbnb in a small town in Germany, this whole plot, it luckily got stopped in its tracks because hours before it was due to begin, police busted down Orlin Rusev's front door. But the trial revealed that the Russian state wasn't just using Marsalek and the Bulgarians to help wage its murderous war against Ukrainians, it was also using them to help in its war against its own citizens.

[Peggy Sutton]

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[Roman Debrochatov]

You guys know I'm always up for a good MVP story. And one of the best is the story of Wasabi Technologies. Wasabi is purpose built to free businesses from skyrocketing storage costs and unpredictable egress fees from old and top heavy legacy providers. You know the big guys. Wasabi is the world's hottest cloud storage company, becoming the go to provider for professional and collegiate sports teams and leagues around the world. And here's why. From Wasabi's AI enabled intelligent media storage Wasabi Air to the industry's only cloud storage service with triple protection against cybercriminals, data deletion and ransomware. Wasabi's taken the lead in driving innovation in data storage, eliminating overhead where it matters to deliver you results you can count on and won't break the bank. In fact, Wasabi is up to 80% less than those other guys and doesn't charge a cent for businesses to access their own data. Wasabi Another championship story. Check them out for [e-mail] business software.

[Sam Jones]

Is expensive and when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting. All linked and talking to each other. Check out [e-mail] that's o d o o dot com. Hi Roman.

[Orlin Rusev]

Oh, let me turn on everything. Yes, it's working.

[Peggy Sutton]

Hi.

[Sam Jones]

Hello. Thanks very much for speaking with us. I know it must be quite difficult circumstances at the moment, but we really appreciate it. Roman Debrochatov is an investigative reporter and the founder of the Insider, an independent media organization with a focus on Russia. He helped uncover the identity of the Russian agents behind the botch salisbury poisonings in 2018. And he helped reveal the attempted murder in 2020 of then Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny using the poison Novichok, all of which has made him pretty unpopular with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Roman currently lives in an undisclosed location. He's under police protection and reveals as little information about his movements as possible. So we didn't meet in person, but once upon a time, he lived in Russia.

[Orlin Rusev]

Yeah, well, actually, I'm in Russia every night because, like, literally every night I have a dream that I'm there and that usually it's one scenario that I'm doing something ordinary, like I'm preparing to go to play football or I'm. I don't know, like, speaking with my relatives or something, and suddenly at some point, they realize that something is wrong. I just remember that actually I can't be now in Russia. This is impossible because they are going to arrest me. And, like, this is surreal, as it's supposed to be in a dream. Feeling of like, what is happening to you cannot be real.

[Sam Jones]

In 2021, Roman had to flee his home, his friends and his family.

[Orlin Rusev]

It was a choice between being killed or imprisoned. I didn't know at this time. I still don't know what was the plan. And the other option was just to have a big risk, but try to get real freedom.

[Sam Jones]

In the middle of the night, he crept across a sunflower field out of Russia and into Ukraine.

[Orlin Rusev]

The second after I crossed the border, I felt, not even psychologically, but even physiologically, I felt how big was the burden that fell from my shoulders.

[Sam Jones]

Except that in Europe, he wouldn't be entirely safe either. It was November 2021, several months after Roman had left Russia behind. He finished a meeting with his team in Budapest, said goodbye to his colleagues and made his way to the airport. But as he waited to board his flight to Berlin, he didn't realize that he had company, because one of the minions was waiting to board the plane too. She would be sat next to him, not by coincidence, but by design. As he settled into his seat, he had no idea that someone was watching him.

[Orlin Rusev]

We didn't even have an eye contact. She had a camera in her shoulder so she could watch everything.

[Sam Jones]

As it turned out, weeks earlier, Rusev had gained access to a Pan European flight booking system used by most major airlines. And that meant that Rusev and Marsalek could put their minions next to anyone they wanted on any flight across the continent. And beyond all of this, it's revealed in the messages sent back and forth between the group on Telegram. Marsalek was delighted.

[Moira Scott]

The future flights are amazing data. I absolutely love that airline system.

[Sam Jones]

Roman is settling into seat 4A and Rusev's undercover girl, as he refers to her, is in seat 4B. She'll be taking lots of selfies during the flight, Rusev jokes in a message to Marsalek. Later, he sent Marsalek an update. Our agent was very, very observant, he wrote. She had even watched Roman unlock his iPhone and remembered the code. Marsalek responded with a grinning emoji and.

[Moira Scott]

The words afraid of Novichok.

[Sam Jones]

Indeed, stalking Roman on this flight wasn't the end of the operation against him. Marsalek seemed to have impressed the higher ups in Moscow. Now his team had proved they could get close to Roman undetected. It looked like they'd be offered more work and this time it might involve more responsibility. The following year, Marsalek wrote to we.

[Moira Scott]

Might get the opportunity to kidnap rd. Any ideas how to do this?

[Sam Jones]

Rusev confirmed that if they got the green light for the kidnapping, he had a team ready and waiting.

[Moira Scott]

A successful operation on British ground would be amazing after the fuck up, Skripal stuff.

[Sam Jones]

This is a reference to the Salisbury poisonings, which had ultimately failed because the target was still alive. If Marcelot could carry out a successful operation against a target in the uk, it would be a huge coup. They brainstormed other ways to harm Roman in case Moscow might want a more radical intervention, like spraying him with the nerve agent VX or burning him alive in the street. It wasn't until the Bulgarian cell was busted by UK police that Roman found out about any of this. It made him realise that possibly there would never be a place where he could escape the predations of his own government. Yet for all of that, he has kept remarkably composed.

[Orlin Rusev]

I think a person cannot be scared for too long. Physiologically, this is a feeling that you can have for a short time to mobilize yourself and then it just turns off.

[Sam Jones]

Perhaps he's just very brave, but perhaps too, he knows that being intimidated, it's exactly what Russia wants him to feel and for others like him to feel too.

[Orlin Rusev]

So the death rate of investigative journalists is still much lower than in Ukrainian army. So we shouldn't be too depressed about the situation.

[Sam Jones]

That's a very noble thing of you to say, given that your life must have changed completely. I mean, not only have you left your homeland, the country you were born in, but also now, as you've just said, you're having to move around, you can't talk about where you are, your life is very disrupted. What can you tell us about the ongoing threat to you?

[Orlin Rusev]

Yeah, so I know that Russian intelligence is still tasking other criminals to look for me.

[Sam Jones]

Roman has been reporting on Marsalek too, and has continued, despite becoming a target of his spy ring. And he's noticed a sort of dark parallel.

[Orlin Rusev]

We are like people who are hunting each other from different parts of the world. So he came to Russia, I came to Europe from Russia. I'm searched and arrested in absentia in Russia. The same with Mosalik in Europe. So, yeah, we're some kind of symmetric to each other.

[Sam Jones]

On 12th May, 2025, the Central Criminal Court in London passed its judgment. All six accused were found guilty of conspiracy to spy. The shortest sentence handed down was for five years in jail. The longest against Rusev was for nearly 11 years. You might think, hearing all this, a tale of aggressive, complicated covert operations entrusted to amateurs with little regard for risk or consequences, that Russia is pretty out of control. And in one sense, you would be right. Many European governments are genuinely concerned that in recent years, Russia has, as Britain's intelligence chief told the FT last year, gone feral. Only the rather alarming thing is that this chaos, this risk taking, it's by design. Coming up on the season finale of Hot Money, they are former intelligence officers and military people with an intelligence war mindset who have now turned the tradecraft of the KGB into the statecraft of the Russian state.

[Helen Worrell]

Just shows that these people were motivated by money. They do whatever work was necessary by whoever was prepared to pay them.

[Sam Jones]

Hot Money is a production of the Financial Times and Pushkin Industries. It was written and reported by me, Sam Jones. The senior producer and co writer is Peggy Sutton. Our producer is Izzy Carter. Our researcher is Maureen Saint. Our show is edited by Karen Shakurji. Fact checking by Kira Levine. Sound design and mastering by Jake Gorski and Marcelo d', Oliveira with additional sound design by Izzy Carter. Original music from Matthias Bossi and John Evans of Stellwagen Symphonet. Our show art is by Sean Carney. Our executive producers are Cheryl Brumley, Amy Gaines McQuaid and Matthew Garaghan. Additional editing by Paul Murphy. Special thanks to rula Khalaf, Dan McCrum, Laura Clark, Alistair Macki, Manuele Saragossa, Nigel Hansen, Vicky Merrick Eric Sandler, Morgan Ratner, Jake Flanagan, Jacob Goldstein, Sarah Nix, and Greta Cohn. I'm Sam Jones. Hi again, I just wanted to let you know about two corrections to previous episodes. In episode three, we reported that Marsalek told Cillian Kleinschmitt that he arrived in Palmyra in syria in a MiG8. That was an error. Cillian only recalls Marsalek saying that he arrived in Syria in a helicopter, and we're not exactly sure what kind. In episode four, we said that Marsalek left home just before taking his final school exams at age 17. In fact, he was aged 18 when he left home. I want to take a moment to thank you for being a Pushkin plus subscriber. I hope you're enjoying hot money. Be sure to take advantage of all Pushkin plus has to offer, including ad free access to all Pushkin shows, bonus episodes, early access, exclusive binges and full audiobooks after this episode.

[Roman Debrochatov]

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[Roman Debrochatov]

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[Roman Debrochatov]

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[Roman Debrochatov]

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[Sam Jones]

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