Two Latvians Arrested Inside a US-Used RAF Base as Counter-Terror Police Take Over

RAF MOLESWORTH, CAMBRIDGESHIRE — THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2026 — At about 2am on Thursday, two men were discovered deep inside one of the most sensitive military sites in Britain — and by Thursday evening, the case was in the hands of British counter-terrorism police. The men, both Latvian nationals and UK residents aged 32 and 36, were found on RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire after Ministry of Defence Police officers on a routine security patrol came across an abandoned vehicle, raised the alarm, and uncovered a small breach in the base’s perimeter fence, according to police statements reported by Reuters.

02 How Two Men Got Inside

The chain of events, as police described it, started with something an ordinary patrol officer might have logged and moved on from: a vehicle, abandoned, where it shouldn’t have been. The MoD Police patrol team raised the alarm anyway — and the follow-up checks found the small breach in the perimeter fence, CNN reported. What they found on the other side of it was the two men, Latvian nationals living in the UK, at around 2 in the morning.

Police in the UK do not name people who have been arrested but not charged, so the two men have not been identified beyond their nationalities and ages. Their first arrests were on suspicion of trespass on a prohibited site and criminal damage — serious enough, but the kind of thing a late-night break-in would normally earn. Then came the escalation: both men were re-arrested on suspicion of entering a prohibited place for a purpose prejudicial to the UK, the statutory offence under the National Security Act 2023, as Reuters reported — a far heavier charge reserved for cases where investigators believe there may have been more going on than a simple intrusion.

03 Why This Base Is a Big Deal

RAF Molesworth is not an ordinary airfield. The Cambridgeshire base is used by US personnel and hosts intelligence analysis and command operations, along with a NATO intelligence centre, CNN reported. It is not used for flying operations — its value is in the people and the information inside it, not the runways. That is precisely why a cut fence and two men found within at 2am set off alarms all the way up the chain.

The story reads less like a late-night trespass and more like a probe: two people who were not supposed to be anywhere near the site, inside a facility whose entire purpose is intelligence work for two of the world’s biggest militaries. It is also, quietly, one of a cluster of US-used RAF stations across eastern England — a reminder, as the next section makes plain, of why American military assets in the UK are suddenly under such intense scrutiny.

04 The Fairford Shadow

The Molesworth arrests land in an atmosphere already charged with anxiety about US bases in Britain. Just weeks earlier, a suspected plot targeting RAF Fairford — the Gloucestershire base the US military has used to launch missions against Iran — prompted the UK government to link it publicly to Iran, a claim Tehran denied, according to Reuters.

On Monday, the US said a threat linked to Iran had prompted the removal of B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford. The Pentagon confirmed the B-1 Lancers were “redeployed to their home stations in the United States,” CNN reported, and President Donald Trump said Monday he did not want to tempt “the enemy” by keeping the bombers in place. For the full story on that standoff, read our coverage of the threats that forced the bombers out and the pullout itself.

Against that backdrop, two Latvians found inside an intelligence hub in the dead of night were bound to draw counter-terrorism attention. But police have said there is nothing so far to suggest the Molesworth incident is linked to the suspected Fairford plot — a point the authorities have stressed rather than downplayed. On the Fairford investigation itself, Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley urged the public to “trust” the inquiry, according to The Times, after a seventh suspect was released on bail.

05 Are the Bases Safe?

The obvious question — how does anyone cut through a military perimeter fence and walk around an intelligence base at 2am? — is the one defence officials are now having to answer. Defence officials told The Times that UK bases are safe, describing base protection as multi-layered: physical barriers, patrols, surveillance, monitoring and counter-drone capabilities. It is a thorough-sounding list. It also now has to sit next to the fact that on Thursday morning, two men were inside one of those bases anyway.

That tension is the real story here. Base security in Britain was already under a microscope after the Fairford plot; Molesworth adds a second, very different incident — not a suspected state-backed plot, but an actual physical breach of an intelligence facility, the kind the multi-layered defences are supposed to prevent. Whatever the two men were doing there, the base was meant to make sure they couldn’t.

06 What Happens Next

The investigation is in its early stages, but the footprint is already widening. Police are searching two homes in Peterborough, according to the Scottish Sun — suggesting the two men’s lives in the UK are being picked apart for motive. The abandoned vehicle, meanwhile, was examined by specialist explosive-ordnance-disposal officers, who found nothing of concern, the Scottish Sun reported. That detail matters: it means the patrol’s instinct to raise the alarm paid off without a secondary scare.

Under the National Security Act, the clock now runs differently than for an ordinary trespass case — and with counter-terrorism police in charge, expect the next official word to be carefully worded. The big open questions are the same ones police always face at this stage: who these men are, what they were doing inside an intelligence base at 2am, and whether anyone sent them there. Until those answers come, our news desk will be watching this one closely — because a breached intelligence base in Cambridgeshire has a way of staying in the news.