🔗 Share this article

A group of six individuals from Britain acting for Russia’s Wagner group have been sentenced to prison for setting fire to a London-based storage unit that was storing relief supplies destined for Ukraine.

Sentencing and Roles

Sentencing the men, the judge at the Old Bailey remarked that they had orchestrated a “series of terrorist and sabotage acts” to benefit the Russian state.

Dylan Earl was given a seventeen-year prison sentence with an additional six years on supervised release due to his “primary involvement”. Another defendant, Jake Reeves, from Croydon in south London, was sentenced to 12 years in jail with an additional year on supervised release. The offences they admitted resulted in them being the first individuals to be convicted under the National Security Act 2023.

Jakeem Rose, also a Croydon resident, was jailed for a term of eight years and ten months. Nii Mensah, a Thornton Heath, South London local, was given nine years imprisonment and Ugnius Asmena, 21, who was without a fixed address, was handed seven years in prison. The trio were each found guilty of aggravated arson and given a further year on extended licence by the court.

Ashton Evans drug dealer from Newport in Gwent, was sentenced to nine years with an extra year on supervised release after being convicted of withholding information about terrorist acts relating to another plot in Mayfair.

Details of the Attack

The arson attack on a Leyton-based storage facility in East London endangered sixty fire service personnel and resulted in £1m in damage in March last year.

The proceedings revealed that the 21-year-old Earl and the 24-year-old Reeves remained in their residences while organising the attack for the Wagner group, representing the Russian Federation.

The individuals involved targeted the storage facility because it was being utilized for providing humanitarian aid and satellite communication gear to Ukraine.

When the identical Ukrainian firm was subjected to an intentional fire ten days afterward in Madrid, investigators from the Metropolitan Police's anti-terror unit took over the investigation.

Evidence and Further Plans

When Earl was arrested, law enforcement examination of his cellphone revealed he had recordings of the storage facility blaze being started and was in communication with the Wagner organization on the Telegram messaging app, via an account with the usernames ‘Privet Bot account’ and ‘Lucky Strike alias’.

Some of the communications indicated that reconnaissance for additional operations, involving fire-related incidents at a restaurant and wine shop in Mayfair belonging to the Russian opposition figure Evgeny Chichvarkin had already been carried out. The use of explosives to damage buildings was also discussed.

Investigators discovered that Earl was also raising the possibility of kidnapping Chichvarkin and “exiling him back to Russia to confront imprisonment”.

The individual involved in narcotics from Elmesthorpe, Leicestershire had talked about another potential attack in the Czech nation.

In a residence inspection, law enforcement located a Russian flag, more than £20,000 in cash and cocaine with a market value of approximately thirty-four thousand pounds.

Motivations and Judicial Remarks

The proceedings revealed he was a member of multiple pro-Russian propaganda channels and was motivated by “simple and ugly greed”.

“This legal matter concerns 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” regardless of whether the individuals responsible knew it. The Wagner organization is banned by the UK government as a terrorist organisation.