French police on Tuesday arrested a 40-year-old Russian man suspected of planning to “organize events likely to cause destabilization during the Olympic Games.”
The man was arrested at his home in Paris at the request of the French Interior Ministry and placed in pre-trial detention. His home was also searched by the police.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin repeated the charge of “destabilization” during a radio interview on Tuesday but offered no further details of the suspect’s identity or exactly what mischief he was accused of plotting.
France’s Le Monde dug up more details on Wednesday, describing the suspect as a “former reality TV star trained at a Parisian culinary school,” a partner in a Moscow investment fund, and an agent of the FSB, Russia’s successor agency to the notorious KGB.
According to Le Monde, the man nicknamed “K” drew the attention of investigators in May by getting too drunk to board a plane from Istanbul to Paris and making a phone call to his FSB superiors while arranging an alternative flight home. He also allegedly said something menacing about how the Paris Olympics would “have an opening ceremony like no other.”
Le Monde said the police found “a map of an elite Russian special forces unit, acting under the command of the FSB,” plus some “documents of diplomatic interest,” when they searched his apartment.
Although the article fastidiously avoided naming the suspect, it implied he is fairly well-known, as social media accounts dedicated to his cooking videos have “several thousand followers, mainly Russians.”
The Moscow Times said the charges against the suspect boil down to “passing intelligence to a foreign power in order to arouse hostilities in France.” He was evidently not suspected of planning a violent terrorist attack himself.
On the other hand, the BBC quoted sources who said that whatever the suspect was planning was a “large-scale project” that could have “serious” consequences.
The Russian embassy in Paris claimed to have no knowledge of the suspect or his alleged activities. The embassy said it has “proactively” asked French officials for “clarification” on the matter.
Extremely tight security has been imposed in Paris for the Olympic Games, and French officials are bracing for actions by terrorists and other malefactors. Russia is sending only a tiny handful of athletes to the Paris Olympics and has complained about restrictions imposed on Russian competitors due to international sanctions against the invasion of Ukraine.
