UK border official and former Hong Kong cop convicted of assisting Chinese spy agency in Britain
LONDON (AP) — A U.K. border official and former Hong Kong police officer were convicted Thursday of spying for China by carrying out what prosecutors called “shadow policing” operations in Britain.
Peter Wai and Bill Yuen, both dual Chinese and British nationals, 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,” prosecutors said.
A jury in the Central Criminal Court in London found them guilty on charges they violated the National Security Act by assisting a foreign spy service. Wai was also convicted of misconduct in a public office.
“These convictions send a clear message that transnational repression, foreign interference, unauthorized surveillance, and attempts to operate outside the law will not be tolerated on British soil,” said Bethan David, head of counterterrorism at the Crown Prosecution Service. “This conduct was deliberate, coordinated and carried out with full knowledge of who it would benefit.”
The panel could not reach verdicts on charges that the men committed foreign interference.
Wai, 40, worked as a U.K. Border Force officer and was a special City of London constable and ran a private security company.
Yuen, 65, was formerly a superintendent in the Hong Kong Police 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. He allegedly helped gather intelligence on the whereabouts and activities of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists and politicians who had moved to the U.K. in recent years after authorities introduced a wide-ranging national security law in the Asian financial hub.
Yuen assigned tasks to Wai, who was convicted of misconduct for misusing police computer systems while off duty to gather information. Wai was paid from a trade office account, prosecutors said.
Phone messages showed the two conducted surveillance of former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law and activists they referred to as “cockroaches.”
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 lawmaker Iain Duncan Smith, a co-chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
___
The age of Peter Wai has been corrected. He is 40 not 38.