Three men in UK court accused of assisting Hong Kong intelligence service

Three men have appeared in a London court on charges of assisting intelligence services in Hong Kong, the latest in a slew of espionage-related prosecutions in the UK.

The individuals were arrested this month under the National Security Act by London’s Metropolitan Police, as part of an investigation led by officers of its counter terrorism division, the force said.

They were charged with two offences under the National Security Act — the second time the act, which widened the scope of what counts as spying, has been used since it was introduced last year.

“The foreign intelligence service to which the above charges relate is that of Hong Kong,” the Met said earlier on Monday.

Chi Leung (Peter) Wai, 38, Matthew Trickett, 37, and Chung Biu Yuen, 63, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday and spoke only to confirm their identities.

Prosecutors accused the three of agreeing to undertake information gathering, surveillance and acts of deception that were likely to materially assist a foreign intelligence service.

As part of the alleged offending, the men are also accused of forcing entry into a UK residential address.

Wai, of Staines, Trickett, of Maidenhead, and Yuen, of Hackney, were not asked to enter pleas. They all appeared in grey sweatshirts. They were granted conditional bail and are next due to appear in court at the Old Bailey in London on May 24.

The prosecutions are part of a recent crackdown on alleged 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.

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said in a statement on Monday: “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.”

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.

The Hong Kong police have a national security division and Chinese national security officers are stationed in Hong Kong, but the territory does not have an official overseas intelligence service of its own.

Later on Monday, the Hong Kong government issued a statement in which it “demanded the UK side to fairly handle the matter, effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office’s office manager who was alleged to be involved, and ensure that the normal work of the Economic and Trade Office is not affected”.

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, east London, 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.