The United Kingdom sentenced two people to prison on Thursday after they were convicted of spying on behalf of China, renewing concerns about Beijing’s influence in the country.
Former Hong Kong Police Superintendent Bill Yuen and U.K. Border Force officer Peter Wai were sentenced to a combined 18 years in prison, according to an order from Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb, who presides over London’s Central Criminal Court. The pair worked in tandem on behalf of Beijing to carry out a “shadow policing operation” targeting Chinese pro-democracy dissidents, or “cockroaches,” living in the U.K., according to prosecutors.
“They were spying and targeting individuals in the U.K. who were pro-democracy campaigners and were simply protesting against the Hong Kong and Chinese government and authorities and seeking sanctuary in the U.K.,” Helen Flanagan, commander for Counter Terrorism Policing London, said in a statement calling their activity “truly chilling.”
The two men were found guilty in early May of assisting a foreign intelligence service and appear to be the first in Great Britain to be convicted of the offense under the U.K.’s sweeping National Security Act 2023. Their sentencing comes as fears about China spying in Britain, including through infiltrating Parliament and surveilling lawmakers, have risen in recent years, particularly after officials authorized a massive new Chinese Embassy in London, despite international concerns that the facility could be used to spy on nearby sensitive infrastructure.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer “needs to stop being naive, grow a backbone, and treat China like the threat we all know it is,” Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch warned earlier this year.
Wai had served in London’s Metropolitan Police and was in the Royal Navy for eight years. He drew a fellow Border Force officer named Matthew Trickett into his surveillance of Hong Kong dissidents, according to prosecutors.
Yuen, the former Hong Kong police officer, was the office manager at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London. He became Wai’s contact with Chinese authorities. The pair were introduced in 2017, and by the middle of 2021, Yuen had become Wai’s handler, to whom he reported directly about the activities of Hong Kong dissidents and pro-democracy protesters in the U.K., according to the BBC.
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Hong Kong has claimed that the pair’s convictions were built on “groundless accusations” that “abused law and manipulated judicial procedures.”
The men have said they are innocent. The Chinese Embassy in London said the case was “nothing but a political move of abusing the law.”