During the ongoing trial at the Central Criminal Court in London, new details emerged about the case involving Bulgarians accused of espionage in the UK. The BBC reported that one of the defendants, Tihomir Ivanchev, claimed during police questioning that he had already been in contact with the British domestic intelligence agency MI5 prior to his arrest. In a February 2024 interview played in court, Ivanchev disclosed that he had met and spoken with an MI5 representative multiple times.