Gen Z ‘Gig Workers’ For Russian-Backed Group Convicted of Arson

Three men were being paid by the Russian state to carry out arson and kidnappings to undermine European support for Ukraine and punish opponents of the regime.

The men were found guilty on Tuesday of torching a London warehouse containing Starlink satellite technology bound for Ukraine, and acting out the directives of the Wagner Group, “a private military organisation that acts on behalf of the Russian state,” according to the BBC.

Jakeem Rose, 23, Ugnius Asmena, 20, and Nii Mensah, 23, were convicted of aggravated arson with intent to endanger life.

The getaway driver, 61-year-old Paul English, was acquitted due to lack of knowledge. Another man was convicted for knowing about terrorist acts but failing to disclose the information, and yet another was acquitted on the same charge.

The whole operation was caught on CCTV. The perpetrators also livestreamed the arson along to the song “Spit of Gym” by Lowlemon, in typical Gen Z fashion.

The arson caused more than $1.36 million worth of damage.

The two ringleaders, Dylan Earl, 21, and Jake Reeves, 23, had already pleaded guilty to aggravated arson and violating the National Security Act. Both men have a history of dealing drugs.

Earl was the first person to be convicted under the United Kingdom’s National Security Act. After being arrested, he admitted to his role in a plot to kidnap Russian billionaire and expat Yevgeny Chichvarkin and burn his Michelin Star restaurant to the ground. Chichvarkin has been a vocal opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The men seem to have been motivated primarily by money. Though their handler refused to pay them for the Starlink incident, claiming that they “rushed into burning these warehouses without my approval,” he promised $6,800 for other warehouses in East London.

Earl had also expressed allegiance to the Russian cause, prompting his handler to call him “our dagger in Europe.”

“We will be sharpening you carefully,” they added.

Earl exchanged hundreds of messages with his Wagner contact, named “Privet Bot,” over Telegram. The contact encouraged him to recruit “soccer hooligans, Irish republican militants and high-profile criminal groups,” Reuters reported.

The Wagner Group began as a state-funded “private military company” but “has been under the control of Russian state agencies and intelligence services since a failed 2023 coup,” according to British authorities speaking to The New York Times.

The Russian Embassy in London stated after the attack that “Russia has never engaged in sabotage activities against the United Kingdom and has no intention of doing so.”

They dismissed the claims of ties to the Wagner Group as a “malevolent campaign of anti-Russian scaremongering.”

The British government has cracked down on Russian foreign intelligence since the poisoning and attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent working for the United Kingdom, and his daughter in 2018.

“We’ve made the UK a hostile operating environment for those governments but, as a result, they’ve diversified and are now contacting relatively young people to act on their behalf as proxies in doing their activity,” Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the London police’s Counter Terrorism Command, stated.

Just last month in the United Kingdom, six Bulgarians were convicted of spying for Russia. The Associated Press has noted an increase in Russian attacks across European countries since the start of the Ukraine war.

Murphy said it was “only by good fortune nobody was seriously injured or worse.”

The Crown Prosecution Service said that the convictions will “send a very clear message that this type of offending will not be tolerated on UK soil.”