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Three people have been charged in the UK with spying offences, accused of assisting the Hong Kong intelligence service and of “foreign interference”, in the latest in a slew of espionage-related arrests in the UK.
The men were charged under the National Security Act by London’s Metropolitan Police, as part of an investigation led by officers of the Met’s counter terrorism division, the police force said.
The charges are the second time the act, which widened the scope of what counts as spying, has been used since it was introduced last year.
Monday’s charges are part of a recent crackdown on espionage that saw the expulsion of Russia’s defence attaché Colonel Maxim Elovik last week.
The most recent case saw 11 people detained in Yorkshire and London since May 1, the Met said on Monday.
Eight were released without charge. On Monday, the force named the men charged as Chi Leung (Peter) Wai, 38, of Staines; Matthew Trickett, 37, of Maidenhead; and Chung Biu Yuen, 63, of Hackney. All three men will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates’ Court later on Monday.
Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: “A number of arrests were made and searches carried out across England as part of this investigation. While led from London, the Counter Terrorism Policing network has been crucial to disrupting this activity and we have worked closely with the Crown Prosecution Service since the start of the investigation.”
Murphy added: “While these offences are concerning, I want to reassure the public that we do not believe there to be any wider threat to them.”
He stressed that the cases were not linked to Russian charges that were brought last month under the act.
“This operation is not connected to a recently reported Counter Terrorism Policing investigation linked to Russia,” he added.
UK authorities have cracked down on a range of alleged China- and Russia-related espionage incidents in recent months.
Last Friday, former parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash, 29, and Christopher Berry, 32, appeared in court accused of passing secrets to China.
Cash had previously worked for a hawkish China policy group that had links to the UK security minister Tom Tugendhat.
On the same day, Dylan Earl, 20, also appeared at the Old Bailey law courts, accused of carrying out an arson attack for Russia’s Wagner Group against a Ukraine-linked business in east London.
Jake Reeves, 22, from Croydon, was also charged after the fire broke out at a warehouse in Leyton in March.
Both men were charged under the National Security Act 2023 — the first time that anyone had been charged with alleged offences under the new legislation.
The new act updated and introduced new offences related to espionage, sabotage, foreign interference and influence. It also gave the police additional powers of arrest and detention.
Western intelligence officials have lately stepped up their warnings to their governments that Russia is plotting violent acts of sabotage across the continent.
In another ongoing case, five Bulgarian nationals face allegations of suspected spying for Russia in the UK.
There has also been a string of recent Chinese espionage operations across Europe — including a Chinese hack of business services company SSCL that accessed the data of hundreds of thousands of Ministry of Defence staff and which was reported last week.
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