A Russian chef who has lived in France for 14 years has been arrested on suspicion of plotting with a foreign power to stage “large scale” acts of “destabilisation” during the Olympic Games in Paris.
The 40-year-old man was arrested during a raid of his apartment in central Paris on Sunday where a document linked to an elite Russian special forces unit operating under the command of the FSB, an heir to the KGB, was reportedly found.
A judicial investigation has been opened into allegations of sharing “intelligence with a foreign power with a view to provoking hostilities in France,” a crime punishable by 30 years of imprisonment. The alleged plot is not believed to have been terror related.
The man, who has not been named, was indicted on this charge on the same day and placed in pretrial detention.
An ambitious opening ceremony of Paris 2024 will be staged on the banks of the Seine on Friday evening and there has long been concern that Russia could seek to meddle in events.
Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said that “other Russian individuals” had been arrested amid evidence at attempts to spread disinformation ahead of the Games.
“We think very strongly that he was going to organise operations of destabilisation, interference, spying,” Darmanin told BFM television. “He’s now in the justice system which will be able to confirm the suspicions of the police.”
Of other alleged attempts to spread disinformation, the minister added: “We saw a video which purports to be someone from Hamas... who announces an attack in the next few days and comes because France is going to welcome Israeli athletes. We’re not sure, but it looks like it is fake and has been spread by pro-Kremlin and pro-Russian channels.”
Prosecutors in Paris said the search of the apartment of the Russian national detained on Sunday had been carried out at the request of the French interior ministry.
According to briefings given to the French media, agents found evidence suggesting the man was preparing a “large-scale project” that could have had “serious” consequences during the three weeks of games.
The French newspaper, Le Monde, reported that the intelligence services had listened into a call two months ago between the individual and a Russian intelligence services handler in which the suspect had stated that “the French are going to have an opening ceremony like there has never been before”.
No details have been provided as to the nature of the alleged conspiracy to destabilise the games.
The paper reported that the detained man had been trained as a chef in Paris and that he had participated in Russian reality and cooking shows. He had described himself on his CV as a “private chef”.
He first arrived in France in 2010 and spent some time in Courchevel, a ski resort popular with the Russian elite, where he worked in a Michelin starred restaurant, before leaving for Paris in 2012.
According to emails dating from September 2012, and seen by Le Monde, the suspect had told his landlady, named by the paper as Viviane, that he was returning to Moscow to work as an official in the Russian government. But he took part in a civic training day, a mandatory integration step in France, in April 2013.
The intelligence services had tracked him for months. They picked up on his alleged phone call to his handler in May at a time when he was returning from a trip to Istanbul to his home in Paris.
He was turned away from his flight due to excessive alcohol consumption and instead returned via Bulgaria, at which point the conversation about the Olympics opening ceremony was monitored, according to Le Monde.
At 6am on Sunday, police officers from the elite ‘research and intervention brigade (BRI), called in by the General Directorate of Internal Security, raided the suspect’s home on Rue Saint-Denis on the right bank of the Seine. It is claimed that the police found “documents of diplomatic interest” among his possessions.
Last month Microsoft said Russia was seeking to undermine the Olympics with the creation of fake websites replicating authentic French media outlets and the use of artificial intelligence to fuel concern about violence and terrorism.
Darmanin, said this week that authorities had screened over one million people.
“We are here to ensure that sport is not used for espionage, cyberattacks or to criticise and sometimes even lie about France and the French,” he said.
