Two men, including a UK immigration officer, have been found guilty of spying on politicians and pro-democracy activists on behalf of China.
Chung Biu (Bill) Yuen, 65, and Chi Leung (Peter) Wai, 40, were found to have violated the National Security Act by assisting a foreign intelligence.
Wai, who was a UK immigration officer, was also convicted of misusing his Border Force job to gain access to the interior ministry’s computer system.
The court heard both men — who were dual Chinese and UK citizens — posed as legitimate police or intelligence officers to conduct surveillance and gather information about Hong Kong pro-democracy supporters and others deemed “persons of interest”.
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson told the court Yuen and Wai had been tasked to carry out “shadow policing operations” for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and ultimately China.
Wai worked as a UK Border Force officer, a volunteer officer for City of London Police and ran a private security company.
Yuen used to be a superintendent in the Hong Kong Police and was employed in London by the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office, the official overseas representative of Hong Kong’s government.
Prosecutors said Yuen’s work went beyond his job description as office manager of the trade office.
The court heard he helped gather intelligence for Hong Kong on pro-democracy activists and politicians who had moved to the UK in recent years after authorities introduced a wide-ranging national security law in the Asian financial hub.
Yuen assigned tasks to Wai, who then allegedly used police systems to gather information for his private work that was a cover for his spying.
Prosecutors said Wai was paid from a trade office account.
Phone messages showed the two conducted surveillance of former Hong Kong politician Nathan Law and that their interest extended beyond Hong Kong activists, who they referred to as “cockroaches.”
“They wanted to know where they were, where they live, what they are doing, who they are associating with, who they are communicating with and how they are doing that and those are the very things that these defendants were in the business of obtaining,” Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson said.
Yuen told Wai to pay special attention to members of parliament or government employees and in 2023 provided the name of prominent politicians, including Conservative UK politician Iain Duncan Smith, a co-chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
The jury could not reach a verdict on a separate count relating to forcing entry into the northern England home of a woman accused of fraud in 2024.
A third man, Matthew Trickett, 37, was also accused of the same offences before his death after the trio were charged.
He was a former British Royal Marine who worked as an immigration officer and private investigator.
His death was not considered suspicious.
The Chinese Embassy in London has accused Britain of fabricating the charges against the two men.
London has repeatedly accused Beijing of espionage activities.
There have been tensions between the UK and China over a national security crackdown in Hong Kong that saw violent pro-democracy protests in 2019. (ABC News)
