Recruiter offered $30,000 to torch Flytronic drone plant in Gliwice, Poland, report says
What happened
According to a report by Vot Tak, an investigative outlet, a journalist posing as a Belarusian job seeker on Telegram was approached by an account calling itself 'Joker'. The recruiter reportedly offered $30,000 to set fire to the Flytronic facility in Gliwice, Silesian Voivodeship, in southern Poland. The earliest offers reportedly involved burning vehicles with Ukrainian number plates, and the arson proposal came later in the exchange. Vot Tak said it traced the account to a Russian phone number registered in the Saratov region. Flytronic builds FlyEye reconnaissance drones used by Ukrainian forces, and its parent is WB Group. Polish prosecutors have opened an investigation into suspected recruitment for sabotage on behalf of a foreign intelligence service. The text available to us breaks off mid-sentence while referring to the Internal Security Agency (ABW), so the agency's exact role is not fully confirmed here.
Context and assessment
Poland has become a significant transit and industrial hub for Western support to Ukraine, which makes facilities linked to Ukraine's military supply chain a plausible target for hostile intelligence services. Gliwice hosts defence-related manufacturing tied to WB Group, Poland's largest privately owned defence manufacturer, and a drone plant there would be a symbolically and practically relevant target. No related events were logged in this record, so this assessment rests on broader background rather than a local incident sequence. Across Europe over the past few years, authorities have described a pattern in which hostile services recruit low-paid individuals through messaging apps to carry out arson, vandalism or surveillance, often through short-lived accounts and cash offers. Such a model is cheap, deniable and hard to attribute, and it can target many sites at once. If the Telegram account is genuine, it may indicate an effort to disrupt drone production or deter Western defence firms rather than a single, carefully planned operation. Vehicles with Ukrainian plates as first targets would suggest a broader campaign of intimidation as well.
Sources and confidence
The report appears on X through the account @Osint613, which relayed the Vot Tak investigation. The record lists one source and no independent cross-confirmation, so the confidence score of 6.5 reflects a single-channel report with a credible investigative origin but unverified details of the chat itself. Confidence would rise with the full Vot Tak article, a statement from Polish prosecutors or the ABW confirming the investigation, or a response from Flytronic or WB Group. It would fall if the chat cannot be corroborated or if authorities dispute the account.
Location
The location is given at settlement precision, with coordinates placing the event in Gliwice rather than at the exact facility address. Gliwice is an industrial city in the Upper Silesian industrial belt, near Katowice and close to major road links. The precision is adequate for a city-level map marker but does not identify the specific plant building or site perimeter.
▶ View this event on the live map
Intel Mapper aggregates open-source reports from monitored Telegram and X channels, geolocates them, cross-checks duplicates across sources and assigns a confidence score. Entries are updated as new confirmations arrive. Read how we verify events.