British police are investigating whether Russian spies placed a parcel with an incendiary device on a plane to Great Britain, which later sparked a fire at a shipping company's warehouse near Birmingham, the Guardian reveals.
The fire at a warehouse in Minworth, in the Birmingham metropolitan district, occurred on July 22. No one was injured.
As “The Guardian” writes, the parcel was supposed to reach the warehouse of the forwarding company DHL by air, although it is not known whether it was transported by a cargo or passenger plane and what its destination was.
A similar incident occurred in Germany, also at the end of July, when a suspicious package caught fire at the facility of the same company in Leipzig.
On Monday, Thomas Haldenwang, the head of Germany's intelligence service, told members of parliament that if the shipment from Leipzig had caught fire during the flight, “it would have been a disaster.”
Police are investigating links to similar incidents in Europe
The Guardian writes that the Birmingham incident was only revealed after a joint investigation by the British newspaper and German broadcasters WDR and NDR, which raised questions about why authorities did not report it earlier.
“We can confirm that police counter-terrorism officers are investigating an incident at a commercial premises on Midpoint Way, Minworth,” a Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism spokesman said.
“On Monday, July 22, a shipment caught fire here. It was attended to by employees and the local fire brigade, and there were no reports of any injuries or serious damage,” he added.
As the Guardian points out, British investigators suspect that the explosive device case is part of a wider campaign that Russian spies have been conducting across Europe this year, which has been condemned by intelligence chiefs in Britain and other countries.
MI5 chief Ken McCallum warned last week that Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU, appeared to be on a “continued mission to generate chaos on British and European streets” through “arson, sabotage and other (activities)”.
The Guardian writes that no one has been arrested in connection with the fire in Birmingham. “Officers are working with other European law enforcement partners to determine whether this may be linked to other similar incidents in Europe,” a police spokesman said.
Last month, DHL reported that a parcel that caught fire in Germany was originally shipped from Lithuania. The company said it had tightened “security protocols and procedures” in line with recommendations from European authorities.
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