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

Orlin Roussev, Biser Dzambazov 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.

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Biser Dzambazov and Katrin Ivanova

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

What we know about those charged

All three are believed to be Bulgarian, while Dzambazov and Ivanova are reportedly in a relationship, said Sky’s crime correspondent Martin Brunt.

Ivanova describes herself on LinkedIn as a laboratory assistant for a private health business.

She has posted videos online to promote a social platform she set up with Dzambazov for the Bulgarian community in the UK, saying they can help people gain access to English language courses.

A post promoting the network says the couple can also help Bulgarians “obtain documents necessary for living and working” in London.

They say they were “guided by their sense of justice” to do this – and it was not motivated by making money.

A neighbour of the pair said they did not notice any suspicious behaviour and they were “very unobtrusive, you didn’t get to know them at all”.

“People have been coming and going in that place for several years now so we didn’t think anything of it,” they said.

Roussev is listed at Companies House as an officer for a company called MyTotal TV Ltd, along with two others. His LinkedIn says he used to be an adviser to the Bulgarian ministry of energy.

A neighbour of Roussev’s in Great Yarmouth said they saw police searching the guesthouse where he stayed.

They said they saw a forensics tent at the front of the property and men dressed in black coming in and out of the building.

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.”

Katrin Ivanova pictured in a video she posted online promoting a social platform for Bulgarians in the UK
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Katrin Ivanova pictured in a video she posted online promoting her social platform for Bulgarians in the UK

The former home of Biser Dzambazov and Katrin Ivanova in north west London
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The former home of Biser Dzambazov and Katrin Ivanova in north west London

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, Dzambazov 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.”