Secret services: Two men in custody for suspected spying for China

After two men and a woman were arrested for suspected spying for the Chinese secret service, the two men were taken into custody. As a spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe announced, the investigating judge has executed the arrest warrants. The arrested woman is to be brought before the investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice a day later.

Officials from the Federal Criminal Police Office arrested the three suspects in Düsseldorf and Bad Homburg. According to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, homes and workplaces were searched. The accused are said to have obtained information about military technology in Germany in order to pass it on to the Chinese secret service. At the time of the arrests, the defendants were in negotiations about research projects that could be particularly useful for expanding China’s maritime combat power, according to the federal prosecutor’s office.

One of the arrested men is said to have obtained the information for an employee of the MSS secret service who was in China. To do this, he said, he used the arrested couple who ran a company in Düsseldorf. The company served as a “medium for contacting and collaborating with people from German science and research.” A collaboration on science transfer is said to have been agreed with a German university.

A study was carried out for a Chinese contractual partner on the state of the art of machine parts that can be used for powerful ship engines – such as those found in combat ships. The secret service employee from whom one of the suspects is said to have received his orders stood behind the Chinese contract partner. According to the information, the project was financed by Chinese state authorities.