cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/8802473

A UK immigration officer has been found guilty of working for Chinese intelligence as part of a “shadow policing operation”.

Chi Leung “Peter” Wai, 40, used his access to the Home Office computer system to track Hong Kong dissidents based in the UK through the main immigration database.

He was found guilty under the National Security Act of assisting a foreign intelligence service alongside Chung Biu “Bill” Yuen, 65, who was initially his contact with the Hong Kong authorities. Wai was also found guilty of misconduct in public office.

Chinese ambassador Zheng Zeguang will be summoned by the Foreign Office after the two men were found guilty.

Security Minister Dan Jarvis said the men’s activities were “an infringement of our sovereignty and will never be tolerated”.

“We will continue to hold China to account and challenge them directly for actions which put the safety of people in our country at risk,” he added.

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Wai started working as a Border Force officer at Heathrow Airport in December 2020, which gave him access to a vast database of information about foreign nationals in the UK.

He searched it on his days off and sick days, earning money on the side by tracking Hong Kongers who had fled pro-democracy crackdowns for his Chinese contacts. There seems to have been no checks on his access to the database to prevent him doing this.

But he had been providing information on dissidents before then, referring to them in messages as “cockroaches”.

Yuen became his contact with Chinese authorities. A former Hong Kong police officer, he worked as the office manager of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) in London.

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The court also heard “special attention” was paid to British politicians, such as Conservative MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith.

Head of Counter Terrorism Policing London Cdr Helen Flanagan said the pair’s activity had been “both sinister and chilling”.

Wai also drew a fellow Border Force officer, an ex-Royal Marine called Matthew Trickett, into his surveillance of Hong Kong dissidents, the court heard.

Trickett was found dead in a suspected suicide soon after they were caught by counter-terrorism police.

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