Hong Kong’s history as espionage hotbed is back in spotlight after duo arrested in UK. The Post shares portraits of past spies
- Hong Kong’s loose visa requirements and lack of espionage laws before 2024 allowed city to become ideal location for collecting and exchanging sensitive information
- The Post looks at residents caught up in spying cases from ‘Hong Kong’s first spy’ to two local men arrested in UK over espionage allegations
The recent arrest of two Hongkongers in the UK on charges of spying has unearthed the city’s past as a notorious hotbed for espionage that once ranked it alongside destinations such as Casablanca and Lisbon.
Hong Kong’s relatively loose visa requirements and lack of espionage laws in the past made the city an ideal location for collecting and exchanging sensitive information.
The city formally prohibited acts of espionage in March of this year under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, with the offence carrying a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison.
The Post takes a look at Hongkongers caught up in allegations of espionage and those convicted of spying over the decades.
Bill Yuen Chung-biu
Bill Yuen was thrust into the global media spotlight when he was among three men prosecuted by British authorities on Monday over allegations he was spying for Hong Kong.
The former police officer, 63, works as an office manager at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, part of a network of overseas outposts that promotes trade on behalf of the city government.
Recently, American activists and politicians have been advocating for the speedy passage of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Act by the United States Congress, giving the president the power to decertify the offices and forcing them to close within 180 days.
Yuen and the other two men are suspected of contravening Britain’s National Security Act by assisting an overseas intelligence service and engaging in foreign interference.
Yuen was granted bail during his first hearing on Monday. His case will be heard at a court in London on May 24.
Peter Wai Chi-leung
Peter Wai was also among the trio prosecuted on Monday on suspicion of spying for Hong Kong.
The 38-year-old is the director of a private firm D5 Security Limited and a City of London Police special constable said to have more than 20 years of experience in the British military, law enforcement and the private security sector.
Wai was described as “a Hongkonger living in the UK for a long time” by an online media outlet that interviewed him in 2021.
According to D5 Security’s website, the company provides tailor-made security plans and services to high-net-worth individuals, families and businesses based in the United Kingdom, mainland China and Hong Kong.
Wai, Yuen and Matthew Trickett, the third defendant in the case, were also suspected of forcing entry into a UK residential address on May 1.
Jerry Chun Shing Lee
In 2019, former Central Intelligence Agency officer Jerry Lee was sentenced to 19 years in prison in the US after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage by delivering classified information to China.
While there were suspicions that Lee might have played a key role in Beijing’s dismantling of an American spy network in China, he did not face any charges related to such allegations
The New York Times had reported that 18 to 20 informants in China had been killed or imprisoned, with the first signs of trouble emerging in 2010.
Lee is a naturalised US citizen who immigrated to Hawaii from Hong Kong with his family when he was 15. He worked for the CIA from 1994 to 2007.
He was approached by two Chinese intelligence officers in 2010 and offered money in exchange for sensitive information.
At the time of his arrest in the US, Lee was the head of security for an international auction house in Hong Kong. He was described as having virtually no digital footprint and was only known to a few people in the city.
He also allegedly deposited hundreds of thousands of US dollars in illicit payments from his Chinese handlers into his personal HSBC accounts in Hong Kong.
John Shing-wan Leung
John Leung, a Hong Kong permanent resident and US citizen, was jailed for life on the mainland in May of 2023 for spying on behalf of an unnamed American agency. He was 78 at the time.
The Ministry of State Security said Hong Kong-born Leung, also known as Liang Chengyu, opened a restaurant in the US in 1983 and was approached by American intelligence operatives three years later.
He signed an official contract with them in 1989 and received US$1,000 a month to work as an informant, the ministry said.
According to central authorities, Leung used US funding to expand his influence among the Chinese-American community and get close to diplomats in the US through meals, visits and other events.
He later travelled to the mainland while posing as a philanthropist, using charity events as an opportunity to snoop for information, they said.
The ministry said Leung was caught after he used various false identity documents to travel to the mainland via Hong Kong in 2020, when international flights were halted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
John Tsang Chao-ko
John Tsang, dubbed “Hong Kong’s first spy”, was the highest-ranking ethnic Chinese officer within the city’s police force during colonial rule before he was expelled on suspicion of spying for China during the Cold War.
The force’s special branch, a secret service unit, arrested Tsang on a warrant under the Deportation of Aliens Ordinance in October of 1961. He was then escorted to the Lo Wu border crossing and deported after being detained for two months without trial.
His arrest shocked the city and came only a few months after his return from completing a one-year course at Cambridge University in the UK.
According to mainland media, Tsang died in Guangzhou at the age of 91 on December 18, 2014, from an unspecified illness.
Tsang worked as a professor at Jinan University and also served as a member of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a local newspaper said.
