In a gripping scene captured on video, authorities apprehended the mastermind behind a sinister plot orchestrated by Russian operatives, resulting in a campaign of arson and kidnapping. The footage reveals the dramatic arrest of Dylan Earl, a 21-year-old from Elmesthorpe, Leicestershire, who was recruited online by Russian spies to execute these malevolent plans.

Earl was among six British men convicted of betraying their nation for the lure of ‘easy money,’ following the directives of Wagner mercenaries. Today, Judge Mrs. Justice Cheema-Grubb sentenced the group to a combined total of over 65 years behind bars at the Old Bailey, with Earl himself receiving a substantial 17-year prison sentence.

The Metropolitan Police released bodycam footage showing the exact moment when Earl was apprehended for his involvement in recruiting and orchestrating terrorist acts, all in exchange for cryptocurrency payments. The video highlights the swift action of armed officers who took down Earl in a dramatic scene.

Described during mitigation as ‘easy prey for the highly sophisticated operatives of the Wagner Group,’ Earl was busy loading sandbags into his white van at a B&Q store car park in Hinckley, Leicestershire, when officers moved in. The footage captures the tense moment as officers, guns drawn, ordered him to ‘stay still’ and ‘stay on the floor’ before securing him with handcuffs.

Earl, who was described in mitigation as ‘easy meat for the very sophisticated operatives of the Wagner Group’, was lifting bags of sand into his white work van when armed police descended on him in the car park of a B&Q store in Hinckley, Leicestershire, last April.

Pulled to the ground by officers, Earl looked helpless as a group of officers aimed their guns while shouting ‘stay still’ and ‘stay on the floor’ before handcuffing him.

They then order Earl to roll onto his front before carrying out a body search and declaring ‘subject secure’.

Moments later, Earl was told by a female officer: ‘I am arresting you under section 27 of the National Security Act 2023 as I have grounds to believe you are involved in foreign power threat activity, namely you are assisting a foreign intelligence service.’

Having been read his rights, Earl denied all knowledge of the charge and said: ‘What? I’ve been building all day. I hope you guys have some good proof of this. I hope I get a good story from this.’

Earl and his five stooges were lured in by an automated Russian chatbot trawling for recruits on the encrypted Telegram app before their communication was taken over by Russian intelligence operatives, according to security sources.

Counter-terrorism police said the men were part of a Europe-wide campaign of sabotage by ‘grey-zone proxy actors’ on behalf of the Russian Federation.

The case is the first to be brought under the National Security Act which gives investigators new powers to prosecute those assisting foreign intelligence agencies.

At today’s hearing, the judge said Russia was seeking to extend its ‘pernicious global influence’ using social media to enlist saboteurs ‘a vast distance from Moscow.’

Anonymous online recruiters using encrypted messaging platforms ‘found men prepared to undergo a form of radicalisation and betray their country for what seemed like easy money,’ she added.

The Russians were ‘leveraging the greed and base instincts of individuals’ and ‘in past years our parents and grandparents would have had a simple term for what they did – treason,’ the judge said.

The plot was orchestrated by Earl, a drug dealer who lived with his parents in a large detached house in the Leicestershire countryside and who worked for his father’s building company.

Earl acted as a ‘ready amplifier’ of Wagner propaganda and recruited four other men online who volunteered to carry out arson attacks for payment in crypto. 

One man later said he thought it was for an insurance fraud or as revenge for an unpaid drug debt.

Duncan Penny KC, prosecuting, said that Earl was driven by support for Russia but the motive of the other men, who were offered up to £8,000, appeared to be ‘good old-fashioned greed.’

Earl also approached a sixth man, a drug dealer from South Wales, and two individuals were recruited to make surveillance videos but were never charged.

The men set fire to a warehouse on the Cromwell industrial estate in Leyton, East London, causing an estimated £1m in damage and destroying vital Starlink satellite equipment destined for Ukraine.

They were then tasked to burn down an exclusive restaurant called Hide and a wine dealership called Hedonism in Mayfair, as well as to kidnap the billionaire owner, Evgeny Chichvarkin.

He had made his money by co-founding a mobile phone business in Russia before becoming an ‘enemy of the state’ after speaking out against the regime and driving lorries carrying aid to Ukraine.

The Wagner mercenary group had been folded into Russia’s GRU military intelligence, following a mutiny led by its former leader Yvegny Prigozhin.

The GRU are suspected of running a so-called ‘campaign of chaos’ following the invasion of Ukraine which has involved an arson attack on an Ikea store in Lithuania, a warehouse fire in Poland and incendiary devices in DHL warehouses in Germany and Birmingham.

Ten days after the attack in Leyton, another warehouse near Madrid, in Spain, owned by Meest, the same Ukrainian-owned company, was set on fire. 

Police said that although the perpetrators were never caught the evidence ‘strongly suggests the two incidents are linked.’

Earl also sought to buy information from a person he believed was a serving British soldier, saying: ‘We pay well for intelligence. You think you can get good info worth value? We can work something out, they pay well bro.’

He discussed burning down a warehouse in the Czech Republic for £35,000, telling another online contact: ‘Need hittas there, good ps’ [money].

The Russians, using the screen name Lucky Strike, suggested he kidnapped and ransomed Nikolay Storonsky, the British-based Russian-born founder of Revolut bank.

Mr Penny told the Old Bailey that Earl’s actions ‘constitute a sustained campaign of terrorism and sabotage on UK soil, carried out in support of the Russian Federation and its war of aggression against Ukraine.’

Earl joined a Telegram ‘broadcast channel’ called Grey Zone, which was established in 2022 as a mouthpiece for Wagner Group. 

It had 500,000 members and published regular posts inviting people in European countries to join Russia’s fight in Ukraine.

On March 2 last year he told a Telegram contact called Minsk KGB: ‘I been wanting to come Russia. I need a fresh start bro. Do I need to be able to speak Russian though because that’s not the best? Litch [literally] know 30 words, if that.’

On March 15, he made contact with a Wagner automated chatbot using the name PrivetBot which messaged in Russian that Earl put through online translation.

The bot messaged: ‘Hello friend. How are you? We would like you to help us in Europe. What can you do in Europe, what actions? We need those who are our kindred spirit.’

Later it added: ‘By the way we have our first task for you. The maps show that there are a few buildings at this address, there are warehouses among them. We’ll start with something simple – from simple to complicated.’

On March 19 at 6.21pm, the Privet Bot contact added: ‘Will you please see the serial Americans,’ adding: ‘It will be your manual.’

The series was an American spy drama set in the Cold War about two Soviet KGB intelligence officers in Washington.

The Russians nicknamed him ‘SAS’ and Earl promised to be ‘the best spy you have ever seen’, adding: ‘Everything you want in my country I will do immediately.’

On the evening of March 20 last year, just three weeks after the first contact, Earl recruited the four men who set fire to the warehouse.

Jake Reeves, 23, from Croydon, South London, was the step-son of a police officer. He had failed most his GCSEs and was working as an aircraft cleaner at Gatwick.

Addicted to ketamine and obsessed with the gangster video role-play game Grand Theft Auto, he began volunteering for criminal jobs on a Telegram group chat called Violent Wettings – slang for stabbings.

Reeves then subcontracted the job again to Nii Kojo Mensah, a construction apprentice, and Jakeem Rose, both now aged 23, from Thornton Heath, South London, his former college mates.

Mensah’s cousin was said to be a member of STK, a south London gang and drill rap group that had hundreds of thousands of views for their music.

Rose, who was nicknamed ‘L9’, had convictions for possession of a bladed article, two offences of robbery and one for battery from three dates in 2018. 

He took a ‘Rambo’ knife with him to the industrial estate, which he left as they made their escape and was found with another knife when he was arrested.

At 4.14pm on March 20, Reeves messaged Earl saying: ‘Yhh mums [honestly] it’ll get done if you’re serious bro.’ Twelve minutes later, he added: ‘My guys on it.’

Ugnius Asmena, 20, a Lithuanian-born man was living what his barrister described as a ‘somewhat feral’ existence with his drug-addicted mother in a squat in Roehampton, South London.

He did not know the others but volunteered online to find a driver, recruiting Paul English, 61, who lived in a flat across the road, offering him £500.

By 10pm that evening English and Asmena were driving from Roehampton, south west London, to Mensah’s address and from there, north to Leyton.

The attack was livestreamed over Facetime to Earl who then set the video to music as he shared it with his friends.

However, the arsonists forgot to film the warehouse burning down and were never paid for the attack.

Earl was scolded by the Russians for not telling them he was going ahead with the plan: ‘The next fire has to be definitely approved and you have to say in advance the place and the time.’

English had used a red Kia Picanto that had to be bump started and had a set of pliers to turn the ignition key but it was registered in his own name. 

It took police a matter of days to track him down and from there establish the identity of the rest of the arson cell.

Earl was arrested the next day in the car park of a B&Q store in Hinckley, Leicestershire, driving his work van.

He pleaded guilty to aggravated arson and preparing an act under the National Security Act and was jailed for 17 years.

Reeves pleaded guilty to aggravated arson and agreeing to accept money from a foreign intelligence service and was jailed for 12 years.

Mensah was jailed for 10 years, to gasps from the public gallery, Rose for nine years and for 10 months consecutively for possession of a knife, and Asmena for eight years.

Ashton Evans, 20, an IT student and part-time drug dealer from Newport, Gwent, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about terrorist acts after Earl attempted to recruit him for the Mayfair attack. He was jailed for a total of nine years.

Evans had previous convictions for grievous bodily harm and possession of a bladed article after using the knife to slash a man in the back on September 18, 2020 and for assault and possession of a bladed article on May 21, 2023 when he threatened to stab someone who was blocking his path.

Earl and Evans also pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply.

Earl received 5,000 euros in cryptocurrency for the arson attack, but the others were never paid because the Russians said the arson was not properly planned.

The judge said the sentences ‘must send a clear and unequivocal signal to you and all other potential candidates that engaging in online entities offering money for crime and undermining the safety and interests of this country – it is not worthwhile.’

She called Earl a ‘nihilistic youth’ who had been operating a ‘highly profitable’ class A drug dealing business and said his motivation was ‘simple and ugly greed.’

Sir Ken McCallum, director general of MI5, warned last week: ‘If you are a proxy, you’re disposable. You may well be ghosted on payday. 

‘When you’re caught, you’ll be abandoned. You will not feature in a prisoner exchange. You’re on your own.

‘MI5 will keep detecting those who take orders from Russian thugs and we will keep following the trails back to those giving the orders, who imagine they’re anonymous and unfindable behind their screens. They’re not.’

Frank Ferguson, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: ‘This successful prosecution marks a pivotal moment in our national security efforts.

‘The National Security Act has given the Crown Prosecution Service and law enforcement agencies the tools to confront emerging threats from hostile states with greater precision and force.’

Security minister Dan Jarvis said: ‘These sentences send a clear message: we will not tolerate hostile activity by foreign states in our country. Russia’s attempts to undermine the UK’s support for Ukraine will not succeed.

‘This case has shown the strength of the National Security Act – bolstering our ability to detect, disrupt and deter such activity, making the UK an even harder target.

‘To those acting for a foreign state, as the head of MI5 has said, you are disposable and you will not receive your reward, just as these individuals found out.’