Young British men are reaching out online to “hostile” foreign states such as Russia and China offering to commit crimes for them, the head of counter-terrorism at the Metropolitan Police has told Sky News.
Commander Dominic Murphy was speaking ahead of the sentencing of Dylan Earl, 21, who admitted to organising an arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked warehouse in London on behalf of the Russian Wagner group.
On Thursday, the Old Bailey heard that the builder and part-time drug dealer had been “groomed” by a chatbot operated by mercenaries to commit “a sustained campaign of terrorism and sabotage on UK soil”.
Commander Murphy warned that such incidents in which foreign agents attempted to recruit British citizens were becoming “increasingly common”.
He said those targeted tended to be men aged in their late teens to mid-20s, and that while some were approached, others were “proactively reaching out” to Iran or Russia.
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Commander Murphy said: “They really are the definition of proxies on working on behalf of a foreign government here in this country to undertake their activity which directly harms us.”
The number of potential recruits available online to hostile state actors posed a “challenge” for the police, he added.
In addition to the offer of a £9,000 payment, he said Mr Earl had been motivated by the glamour of working for a foreign state.
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“I think there was something about feeling like he was part of the Wagner group and then, as a result, part of the Russian state.
“So for Earl at least, it’s not the case for everybody that we see… at least that did appear to be part of his motivation.”
Earl was “attracted to Russia, a Russian way of life,” the counter-terror chief said.
“He even talked in some of his chat about potentially moving to Russia for a new start. So I think it was about more than money for Earl.”
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Commander Murphy said it was difficult to say how many people were potentially working for the Russian state across the UK, but added there were “a number of investigations that are similar to this all over the country”.
He said that the Kremlin had been forced to attempt to recruit Britons online because it was much harder for its operatives to work in the UK following the response to the Salisbury poisonings, in which former Russian military officer Sergei Skripal was targeted with a nerve agent.
“What they’re doing is using social media, some encrypted social media to reach out to young people here,” he said.
“They’re mostly people involved in criminality or on the periphery of crime. And then enticing them into conducting activity on their behalf.
“But, as we saw with Earl, in this case he was a willing participant. In fact, he was going further trying to offer additional support to the Russian state for activity here in the UK but also in Europe.”
