News you may have missed #600 (China edition)

Lo Hsien-che

Lo Hsien-che

►►Chinese spy stirs unease in Taiwan military. Excellent, well-researched piece by The Washington Post about Lo Hsien-che, a Major General in the Taiwanese military, who earlier this year was convicted in what has been described as Taiwan’s biggest spy scandal in over 50 years. Lo appears to have fallen victim to a carefully planned Chinese honey-trap operation, involving a “tall, beautiful and chic” Chinese female operative, who held an Australian passport.
►►US consulate guard accused of trying to spy for China. Bryan Underwood, a former contract security guard at a US consulate under construction in southern China’s largest city, Guangzhou, was charged Wednesday with trying to pass defense secrets about the site to Chinese intelligence officials. Scheduled for completion next year, the consulate is the only one under construction in the world’s most populous nation.
►►Taiwan professor detained for spying for China. Wu Chang-yu, of Taiwan’s Central Police University, was detained Friday for allegedly providing data on visiting Chinese activists to Beijing. Taiwan’s United Daily News quoted unidentified sources as saying Wu was recruited during a recent visit to China.

News you may have missed #549

Lo Hsien-che

Lo Hsien-che

►►Taiwan general who spied for China gets life. A court in Taiwan has sentenced Lo Hsien-che to life imprisonment, for spying for the People’s Republic of China. As intelNews reported before, Major General Lo gave national secrets to his mistress, a “tall, beautiful and chic” Chinese female operative, who held an Australian passport. Taiwanese counterintelligence investigators said this was Taiwan’s most serious espionage scandal in almost fifty years.
►►Did German intelligence protect world’s most wanted Nazi criminal? The German intelligence service, the BND, destroyed the file of the world’s most-wanted Nazi criminal, Alois Brunner, and may have tried to recruit him into its ranks, German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported over the weekend. The order to destroy Brunner’s file came “at some point between 1994 and 1997”, according to the magazine. Few of those knowledgeable of BND’s history will be surprised. Incidentally, intelligence observers may remember that, in 1961 and 1980, Brunner, who lived in Syria, was injured by postal bombs sent by Mossad agents.
►►Analysis: New Czech spy law will not curtail abuse. Authorities in the Czech Republic have drafted a new law aimed, partly, at limiting the mandates of the country’s domestic Security and Information Service (BIS) and the Office of Foreign Relations and Information (ÚZSI) –the Czech foreign espionage agency. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #515

  • US spies tracked suspected terrorists in Sweden. US intelligence agents have staked out suspected terrorists in Sweden without the authorization of the government there, Svenska Daglbadet newspaper has reported. Last November, Norway, Sweden and Denmark launched official investigations into reports that US embassies there operated illegal intelligence-gathering networks.
  • Aussie spy agency reported on WikiLeaks. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s department has revealed that WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, were the subject of Australian intelligence reporting last year, as the government anticipated the whistleblower website would spill “highly sensitive and politically embarrassing” secrets.
  • Former Taiwanese general accused of spying. Taiwanese government prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for Major General Lo Hsien-che, the most senior Taiwanese official to be arrested on espionage charges in the country since the early 1960s.

General arrested in Taiwan’s biggest spy scandal in 50 years

Lo Hsien-che

Lo Hsien-che

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A “tall, beautiful and chic” Chinese female operative, who held an Australian passport, appears to be behind Taiwan’s most serious espionage scandal in almost half a century, according to news reports. The scandal centers on the arrest earlier this week of Major General Lo Hsien-che, who heads the Taiwanese military’s Office of Communications and Information. Taiwanese prosecutors said that General Lo is the most senior Taiwanese official to be arrested on espionage charges since the early 1960s. He had apparently been investigated for several months by Taiwanese counterintelligence investigators, who claim that Lo was recruited by Chinese intelligence while stationed in Thailand, between 2002 and 2005. Paris-based Agence France Presse cites The China Times in reporting that the General was lured by a female Chinese operative in her early 30s, who cajoled him with “sex and money”. Read more of this post

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