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Six Britons working on behalf of the Wagner mercenary group linked to Russia have been sentenced to prison for setting fire to a London-based warehouse that was storing humanitarian aid intended for Ukraine.

Sentencing and Roles

Sentencing the men, the presiding judge at the central criminal court stated that they had orchestrated a “campaign of terrorism and sabotage” in the interests of the Russian state.

The individual named Dylan Earl was given a seventeen-year jail term with an additional six years on supervised release due to his “primary involvement”. Another defendant, Jake Reeves, from Croydon in south London, was given 12 years in jail with an additional year on supervised release. The offences they admitted made them the initial persons to be convicted under the National Security Act 2023.

Jakeem Rose, aged 23, also from Croydon, was sentenced to a term of eight years and ten months. Nii Mensah, a Thornton Heath, South London local, was sentenced to nine years imprisonment and Ugnius Asmena, who was without a fixed address, was given seven years in prison. The trio were each found guilty of aggravated arson and received a further year on supervised release by the judge.

Ashton Evans, a 20-year-old drug dealer from Newport in Gwent, was sentenced to nine years imprisonment plus a further year on extended licence after being convicted of withholding details regarding terrorist acts connected to a separate scheme in the Mayfair area.

Details of the Attack

The deliberate fire on a Leyton-based storage facility in East London put 60 firefighters at risk and resulted in one million pounds worth of destruction in March last year.

The proceedings revealed that Earl, 21 and the 24-year-old Reeves did not leave their bedrooms while organising the attack for the Wagner mercenary organization, acting on behalf of the Russian Federation.

The group targeted the storage facility because it was being utilized for providing emergency relief and satellite communication gear to Ukraine.

When the same Ukrainian company was hit by an intentional fire 10 days later in the Spanish capital, investigators from the Metropolitan Police's anti-terror unit took over the probe.

Evidence and Further Plans

When Earl was arrested, police analysis of his mobile phone uncovered he had recordings of the warehouse fire being started and was in communication with the Wagner group on Telegram, via an user profile with the handles ‘Privet Bot’ and ‘Lucky Strike’.

Some of the communications indicated that reconnaissance for further “missions”, involving fire-related incidents at a restaurant and wine store in Mayfair belonging to the Russian opposition figure Evgeny Chichvarkin had already been carried out. The employment of explosive devices to damage buildings was also deliberated.

Investigators found that the defendant Earl was also considering the possibility of kidnapping the dissident Chichvarkin and “sending him back to Russia to face prison”.

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

In a residence inspection, law enforcement found a flag of Russia, over twenty thousand pounds in currency and cocaine hydrochloride with a street value of approximately thirty-four thousand pounds.

Driving Factors and Court Comments

The proceedings revealed he was a participant in multiple channels promoting Russian propaganda and was motivated by “simple and ugly greed”.

“This case is about the efforts of the Russian Federation to gain pernicious global influence using online platforms to recruit disruptors far from the Russian capital.”

She found the arson attack had a “link to terrorism” regardless of whether the perpetrators were aware of it. The Wagner organization is proscribed by the British authorities as a terrorist organisation.