Two men have been found guilty of spying for China in an unprecedented case that exposed the terrifying reach of Beijing’s ‘shadow policing’ operations in the UK.
In a shocking breach of national security, Peter Wai, 38, a corrupt Border Force officer from Staines, Surrey, used his privileged access to Home Office databases to spy on dissidents living in the UK, as well as senior MPs who supported them, the Old Bailey heard.
Wai was tasked by Bill Yuen, 66, a retired Hong Kong police superintendent, who ran the spy ring while working as the office manager for the Hong Kong trade mission in central London.
Yuen was one of three former Chinese police superintendents who were recruited to run an intelligence operation on behalf of the semi-autonomous territory of Hong Kong, the court was told.
The defendants, who are both dual Chinese and British nationals, were said to have been part of ‘determined measures’ by the Hong Kong Government and police to ‘reach beyond their jurisdiction’ to target dissidents of the regime.
Peter Wai arriving at the Old Bailey, where has been found guilty of running a Chinese ‘state intelligence service’ on British soil while working as a UK Border Force officer
Wai was tasked with gathering intelligence for Hong Kong authorities by Bill Yuen, 66
The case marked the first time anyone had been charged with spying for China on British soil, after a case was dropped against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry, a parliamentary researcher and an academic, in October last year. They denied the claims.
The spies were prosecuted under the new National Security Act, but that limited the scope of the charges to four-and-a-half month period after it came into force on December 20, 2023.
The jury found the men guilty of ‘assisting a foreign intelligence service’ by agreeing to undertake ‘information gathering, surveillance and acts of deception’ by a majority of ten to two.
The jury was unable to reach a verdict on whether they both also engaged in ‘foreign interference’ by forcing entry into the flat of a Hong Kong national in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, on May 1 2024.
Wai was found unanimously guilty of misconduct in public office by conducting searches of Home Office databases without justification.
The verdict comes amid growing fears over Beijing’s escalating campaign of surveillance and intimidation in the UK, with Chinese authorities accused of treating Britain as if it were its own backyard.
The Old Bailey heard that the spy ring was part of China’s Operation Fox Hunt, a notorious campaign aimed at forcefully returning individuals to China for persecution.
Yuen, who arrived in London in 2015 and now lives in Dalston, east London, was instructed by former policemen in Hong Kong to gather intelligence on pro-democracy activists and their supporters.
Yuen acted as a handler for Wai, a former Metropolitan Police officer, who in turn assembled a team of subcontractors, including former Royal Marine Matthew Trickett, to carry out the surveillance, the court heard.
The prosecution said Wai appeared to have been misusing police computer systems or databases as far back as 2018.
He also used ChatGPT to formulate a surveillance plan for the pro-democracy activist Nathan Law, who was giving a speech at the Oxford Union debating society.
The court heard that Yuen used the Hong Kong trade office accounts to pay Wai almost £100,000 for him and his network to carry out their work.
Yuen, Wai and Trickett were arrested on May 1, 2024, after a botched attempt to hunt down Monica Kwong, 42, who had fled to the UK following a dispute over an alleged £16million fraud with her Chinese property heiress boss, Tina Zou.
The prosecution said the plot had been co-ordinated back in Hong Kong by two former police superintendents.
In farcical scenes recorded on Trickett’s body worn camera, the former Royal Marine poured water under the door of Kwong’s flat in Pontefract claiming he was ‘Dave from maintenance’ as he tried to confront her.
Matthew Trickett, 37, was found dead in a park on 19 May after he was charged with espionage offences
But Kwong had been tipped off by the UK police and the flat was empty.
Prosecuting, Duncan Atkinson KC said the operation ‘involved persons connected with the Hong Kong authorities acting as if Pontefract were a town in China rather than Yorkshire’.
However, the jury was unable to reach a verdict on whether the plot had been orchestrated by Beijing.
Wai was brought up in Hong Kong before moving to England, where he attended St John’s College, a boarding school in Portsmouth.
He joined the Metropolitan Police but resigned after an investigation was launched into his tax affairs. He later joined the UK Border Force.
Wai denied that he had been spying for China, claiming he was researching stories on the reality of life in London for Hong Kong expats.
Despite referring to them as ‘cockroaches’, he claimed to have friends among the dissident community.
Yuen, a father-of-two, also denied the charges, stating he was involved in arranging security for the trade mission after it was sprayed with paint following the crackdown on protests in Hong Kong in 2019.
However, the prosecution argued that the individuals did not pose a threat to the trade office and were instead persons of interest to the Chinese authorities.
Unknown to the jury, Trickett, 37, took his own life after he was charged with spying. He was found dead in a park in Maidenhead, Berkshire, on May 19 last year.
