Two men and a woman have been arrested in Essex on suspicion of assisting Russian state intelligence, the Metropolitan police have said.
The Met said the two men, aged 41 and 46, and 35-year-old woman were arrested at two separate addresses in Grays on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service and taken to a police station in London.
The force said: “The country to which the allegations relate is Russia.”
Commander Dominic Murphy, the head of the Met’s counter-terrorism command, said: “Through our recent national security casework, we’re seeing an increasing number of who we would describe as ‘proxies’ being recruited by foreign intelligence services.”
All three have been bailed while the investigation continues.
Scotland Yard said it would not disclose the nationalities of those involved.