CIA ‘seriously damaged’ China’s overseas spy network, sources say
June 18, 2012 1 Comment
By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A high-level Chinese security official, who was arrested earlier this year in China for spying for the United States, compromised several Chinese agents operating on American soil, according to sources. Reuters news agency, which broke the initial story of the Chinese official’s arrest earlier this month, published last week a lengthy update on the spy affair. The article quoted “two sources with direct knowledge on the matter”, who claimed the issue was considered serious enough in Beijing to prompt the personal intervention of Chinese President Hu Jintao. Jintao, who is also General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, personally ordered an investigation into the case, said Reuters. The investigation focused on China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), China’s primary intelligence agency, where the accused spy was reportedly working at the time of his arrest. Although Chinese media have remained silent on the issue, the arrested official is said to have worked as a senior aide to MSS Vice Minister Lu Zhongwei. The Reuters article alleges that the investigation, which is said to be continuing, has concluded that the aide had been a paid informant of the US Central Intelligence Agency, and that the information he provided to the CIA included “political, economic and strategic intelligence”. But the sources also told Reuters that some of the government secrets that the MSS aide gave the CIA related to China’s network of spies operating on American soil. The latest Reuters article strengthens the widespread view that the latest espionage scandal caused serious damage to China’s espionage network in the US. Some observers now argue that this represents China’s most damaging espionage scandal since 1985, when Yu Qiangsheng, a senior Chinese intelligence official, defected to the United States. Read more of this post
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UK report warns about sexual entrapment by foreign spies
November 11, 2014 by Ian Allen 2 Comments
A leaked report issued by military authorities in the United Kingdom cautions British officials to be aware of attempts by Chinese and Russian intelligence services to compromise them using sexual entrapment. The London-based Sunday Times newspaper said it had acquired a copy of the document, entitled Manual of Security, authored by the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence for use by senior officials. The manual warns that foreign intelligence services are known to employ sexual entrapment or romantic attachment as a means of compromising their targets. The document singles out the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Chinese Ministry of State Security as two adversary agencies that are known to employ sexual entrapment on a regular basis. British officials are warned in the document that the FSB could gain classified information by exploiting “knowledge of marital infidelity or sexual activity the target may wish to hide”. The Times spoke to an unidentified “senior military official”, who told the paper he was recently approached by “a very attractive blonde woman in her early 30s” in a hotel in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg. The woman began telling him of her fascination with vintage British sports cars, which happened to be the British official’s favorite hobby. He eventually terminated the encounter after he became suspicious of the woman’s motives. But he remains puzzled as to how the woman knew details of his personal hobbies. In 2009, the British Foreign Office had to recall its deputy consul-general in the Russian city of Ekaterinberg, after he appeared in an explicit video on YouTube having a sexual encounter with two Russian prostitutes. Many speculated at the time that the video had been posted online by the FSB in an attempt to embarrass the diplomat and have him removed from Russia. Later that year, London’s former deputy mayor, Ian Clement, admitted he was lured by a female Chinese secret agent, who drugged him and ransacked his Beijing hotel room after having sex with him. Clement said he fell for what he called “the oldest trick in the book” while in Beijing to “build contacts with potential investors” for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Sir Christopher Meyer, a career diplomat with the Foreign Office, who served in several countries during his career, including the Soviet Union, has written about the case of Sir Geoffrey Harrison, Britain’s ambassador to Moscow from 1965 to 1968. The ambassador, said Sir Christopher, “had to leave [the Soviet capital] in a hurry, having fallen for the charms of his Russian maid –trained and targeted, of course, by the KGB”. Read more of this post
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