Unmasking the dark web: Christo Grozev's perilous pursuit

A decade ago, Christo Grozev's career was based on managing various media companies in many European countries. With significant financial resources, contacts, and influence, he joined the investigative group Bellingcat in 2015. There, he investigated the actions of Russian services, including the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

In subsequent years, the Bulgarian journalist tracked the activities of the Federal Security Service, exposing over 300 Russian agents involved, among other things, in the poisonings of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Alexei Navalny, and Vladimir Kara-Murza. In James Jones's documentary "Antidote," Grozev reveals that his list includes 5,000 of Putin's spies. However, he never anticipated that he would one day investigate a planned assassination attempt on his life.

On November 26 at 7:00 AM Eastern Time, a trial began in the UK for five Bulgarian spies working with Jan Marsalek, who Russia recruited. They had been tailing Grozev, his family, and his associates for two years with the mission to eliminate him. As revealed by the director of the documentary "Antidote" during a meeting with the audience at the Watch Docs festival in Warsaw, one of the agents, just two days before her arrest, reviewed a beauty salon online near his London home. Bellingcat journalists easily uncovered her because she wrote Google reviews for every hotel she had stayed in.

While watching the documentary, which at times feels like a gripping spy thriller (for example, during the organization of an escape for a Bellingcat informant, a Russian chemist working on poisons and biological weapons banned by all conventions), one might wonder how Grozev and his colleagues manage to expose the regime's crimes, and not the special services. It appears that the proficiency of journalists in using publicly available information online and data obtained from the dark web is often higher than intelligence agents. Grozev acknowledges that MI6 employees respect him and are keen to exchange information.

When someone dedicates themselves to uncovering hidden crimes, questions about the personal costs they incur naturally arise. Grozev's family is divided—his father and son fully support him, while his wife questions the validity of risking one's life in the name of truth.

At the end of 2022, the investigator appeared on a list of foreign agents hostile to Russia. While in the US, Grozev was warned by the authorities not to return to Europe. Viewers might recall a scene where the journalist calls his father to inform him he had turned back from the airport because he was told that upon landing, they would likely try to kill him. "What now?" asks the senior, and the son replies without hesitation: "I will keep chasing them."

Just a few days later, Grozev's father stopped answering the phone. The journalist couldn't visit him or send relatives to the elderly man's home. After reporting the situation to authorities, it was discovered that the senior's body was found under circumstances suggesting third-party involvement. Immediately after the autopsy, the body was cremated without the family's consent, and toxicology tests yielded inconclusive results. Thus, Grozev was left with only one option—to conduct a personal investigation to discover how his father died and whether it was linked to his professional activities.

Aside from showcasing this exceptional journalist, who also appeared in the Oscar-winning documentary "Navalny," director James Jones also shifts his focus onto Vladimir Kara-Murza and his family. The wife of the Russian journalist and opposition member states in the film that it was thanks to the Bellingcat group that they confirmed Vladimir had been poisoned twice. Though his family had obtained asylum in the US, Kara-Murza returned to Russia in April 2022, where he was accused of treason and sentenced to 25 years in a maximum-security penal colony.

Publicizing his case had the desired effect—on August 1st of this year, as part of a prisoner and spy exchange between the US and Russia, 24 people, including Kara-Murza, were freed. "Antidote" thus ends with a scene filmed after the original production's completion: the wife and children of the Russian oppositionist speaking with him by phone from the Oval Office alongside President Joe Biden.

However, this is not the end—life has written another chapter into James Jones's film. The director announced in Warsaw that in January, he would once again film material for "Antidote." Viewers are set to learn details regarding the mysterious circumstances of Christo Grozev's father's death.