When Hide opened in London’s exclusive Mayfair district in 2018, the restaurant made headlines for its twisting bespoke timber staircase, its lavish wine menu and its rapidly won Michelin star.
Last year, it drew attention for another reason.
A group of small-time criminals in Britain were directed by Russian operatives to kidnap Hide’s Russian owner, Yevgeny Chichvarkin — a vocal critic of President Vladimir V. Putin — and to burn the restaurant and a linked wine shop to the ground.
The men were arrested before they carried out those orders, but not before they had completed a separate mission: setting fire to a Ukrainian-owned warehouse in East London in March 2024.
Thousands of messages discovered by the police after the group’s arrest, and made public during a monthlong trial at the Old Bailey courthouse in London, provide extraordinary insight into the workings of Russian operatives paying criminal gangs to conduct espionage and sabotage operations in Europe.
Cmdr. Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: “This case is clear example of an organization linked to the Russian state using ‘proxies’ to carry out very serious criminal activity in this country on their behalf.”
On Tuesday, a jury found three men guilty of arson over the warehouse fire, and convicted a fourth man of failing to tell the police about the plans for Mr. Chichvarkin and his businesses. The two ringleaders of the group, Dylan Earl and Jake Reeves, had already admitted their roles in the extraordinary plot.
The British cell started with Mr. Earl, a 21-year-old drug dealer based in the Midlands city of Leicester, who had become enamored with the Kremlin’s cause and offered to build a network of “hundreds of soldiers” to carry out its orders.
Investigators believe he contacted Russian intelligence operatives on the Telegram app through a channel associated with the Wagner Group paramilitary organization. The British government and security services assess that the group has been under the control of Russian state agencies and intelligence services since a failed 2023 coup.
The Telegram channel had been posting appeals for international volunteers, directing them to contact an anonymous account for further instruction. On March 15, 2024, that account started messaging Mr. Earl.
“Hello friend,” began the exchange, before telling him: “We would like you to help us in Europe.”
The following day, a discussion ensued about potential action. Because Mr. Earl deleted records of his contributions to the conversation, only the messages from his Russian handler were presented to the court.
“You said that you have like-minded people. Tell me more details,” the Russian account asked.
“Do you have access to firearms?” it later wrote, and then, “Excellent! That’s what we need. The task on this warehouse will be our first step.”
“We need people that you have across Europe and the U.K.,” the account wrote. “We need those who are our kindred spirits.”
Within 24 hours of the Telegram chat starting, the Russian account issued its first order — an arson attack on two East London warehouses operated by a Ukrainian businessman.
Mr. Earl told Mr. Reeves, 23, a contact living in South London, to find recruits for the mission. Then, on March 20, a 22-year-old called Jakeem Rose set fire to both units using gasoline and a burning rag. The act was streamed live on FaceTime to Mr. Earl by another man, Nii Kojo Mensah, 23, who recorded it on his phone. A third man, Ugnius Asmena, 20, waited in a getaway car.
Mr. Rose and Mr. Mensah admitted arson but denied they recklessly endangered lives, while Mr. Asmena pleaded not guilty on the basis that he did not know an arson attack would take place. All three were convicted of the offense of arson endangering life.
The men were gone by the time that local police arrived at the burning units on an unassuming industrial estate.
A body-worn camera recorded one officer asking “What is this place?” as flames tore through the warehouses, which contained Starlink satellite equipment and other supplies to be sent to Ukraine.
The fire, which caused more than a million pounds (about $1.36 million) in damage, was the first of what Mr. Earl’s Russian handler described as “lots of glorious jobs ahead.”
“We’ll start with something simple,” the handler had promised. “From simple to complicated.”
Next on the list was kidnapping Mr. Chichvarkin, the former owner of a Russian cellphone company who has publicly criticized Mr. Putin since moving to Britain.
On March 31, 2024, Mr. Earl told Mr. Reeves that there would be a “big payment for this man if you capture him,” adding: “You find this man, nap him, bring him to my location and I pay you there and then and we fix rest. This man needs to be exiled to Russia.”
Describing where the proposed £50,000 payment for the kidnapping would come from, Mr. Earl posted a Russian flag emoji in the chat. He offered another £10,000 for setting fire to the Hide restaurant and Hedonism Wines, both owned by Mr. Chichvarkin.
Mr. Earl asked Ashton Evans, 20, a drug-dealing contact based in Wales, to set up the arson. He noted that the targets were just minutes away from Buckingham Palace, anticipating that the fire would be “worldwide news” and would draw in British intelligence agencies. But he assured Mr. Evans that if he “moved clean” and deleted evidence, “we won’t have any issues ever.”
Mr. Earl said that the properties needed to be reduced to “ashes” in order to receive full payment from his Russian handlers, and discussed how to make napalm and bombs.
Mr. Evans was convicted on Tuesday of failing to report his knowledge of the restaurant plot to the police. He had earlier pleaded guilty of possessing cocaine with the intent to supply it to others.
As reconnaissance and preparations for the attack were carried out, Mr. Earl voiced even bigger ambitions to his Russian Telegram contact. They messaged about creating a new political “partisan movement” in Britain, “punishing Russian traitors,” setting more warehouses on fire, spying on the government and businesses, and obtaining leaked information databases.
But their plans were cut short when Mr. Earl was arrested in the parking lot of a hardware store on April 10, 2024.
Mr. Earl and Mr. Reeves admitted organizing the warehouse arson. In relation to the restaurant plot, Mr. Earl pleaded guilty to preparing acts of serious violence on behalf of a foreign power, and Mr. Reeves pleaded guilty to “agreeing to accept a material benefit from a foreign intelligence service.”
The case was the first prosecution under Britain’s 2023 National Security Act, which created new legal powers against people working on behalf of foreign states.
In his last messages to his Russian handlers before being caught, Mr. Earl had voiced grand ambitions. The day before his arrest, he sent a lengthy pledge claiming he could help them make “criminal connections with murderers, kidnappers, soldiers, drug dealers, fraudsters, car thieves” in multiple countries.
“Everything you want in my country I will do immediately,” Mr. Earl wrote, requesting more money to “create a real European organization that could provide everything you ask.” Mr. Earl vowed that he would give his life to the cause and wrote: “I can be the best spy you have ever seen.”
The Russian account praised Mr. Earl as a “true saboteur,” telling him: “You are our dagger in Europe and we will be sharpening you carefully.” It added: “Then we will start using you in serious battles.”
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