Federal Prosecutor: Ex-employee from AfD man Krah charged for espionage

The Federal Prosecutor has charged a former employee of AfD politician Maximilian Krah and a suspected accomplice for espionage for a Chinese secret service. The man is said to have repeatedly passed on information about negotiations and decisions in the European Parliament and spied on Chinese opposition figures in Germany for the intelligence service. Jian G. also compiled information about leading AfD politicians.

Search of Brussels offices

According to the Karlsruhe authority, German citizen G. has been an employee of a Chinese secret service since 2002. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office had him arrested in Dresden in April 2024. It accuses him of a particularly severe case of intelligence agent activity. He is said to have procured more than 500 documents, “including some that the European Parliament had classified as particularly sensitive”.

In 2023 and 2024, the man spied Chinese opposition and dissidents in Germany. For this, he had appeared on social media as a critic of the Chinese government.

Shortly after the arrest, the highest indictment of Germany’s office from G. and Krah had been searched in the European Parliament in Brussels. In doing so, she emphasized that the search by Krah’s offices was “a measure among witnesses”. The EU Parliament approved the enter of the premises.

According to “Spiegel” information, the information that G. is said to have collected about AfD politicians is to role, status and position of top officials-including the party leader Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla. According to the investigation, the information came from confidential conversations that Jian G. apparently conducted with Krah, writes the “Spiegel”. Chrupalla did not want to comment on this. A spokesman Weidel said that there was no information beyond the “narrow press release of the Federal Attorney General”.

Chinesin worked at the airport – information about armaments goods

At the end of September, Official Federal Criminal Police Office arrested a Chinese woman on behalf of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Leipzig, who worked for a logistics service company at Leipzig/Halle Airport. It is said to have passed on information about flights, freight and passengers of the Saxon airport to the former Krah employee – it was primarily about transporting armaments and people with connections to a German armaments company. The woman is also suspicious of the intelligence agent activity for a Chinese secret service.

Both have been in custody since then. The Dresden Higher Regional Court must now decide whether it allows the indictment and starts a process.

Krah, according to his own statement, is now hoping for clarity from a possible upcoming court trial. “I would like to know if I was falling behind, so whether this is really resilient allegations. And so I hope that the process will now bring the necessary clarity,” he told the German press agency. After the arrest of the Chinese, he had said about the short message service X that there was no connection to his work. The accused only communicated with his ex-employee. “The only allegation that I make in connection with my Chinese-born ex-employee is not careful not to be careful.”

On the same day as G., the federal prosecutor had three more suspected spies for China in Düsseldorf and Bad Homburg. The two men and a woman in Germany are said to have procured information about military technology in connection with research projects in order to pass them on to the Chinese secret service. China rejected the reports of his own spies in Germany and spoke of defamation.

Strict security checks planned

The then Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) warned of further spy cases. The cabinet also decided stricter security checks so that Saboture and informant foreign secret services do not find any access to intelligence services and other security -relevant areas in the state and business.

The amendment to the Security Check Act was no longer advised in the Bundestag before the early Bundestag election. Among other things, she also provided for increased internet research on social networks.

Ex-employees also wanted to work for BND and the protection of the constitution

Over time, more about the history of Krah’s ex-employee. G. had tried to work for the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) a few years ago. However, the foreign intelligence service refused to collaboration according to information from the German Press Agency at the time. Later, the man said that the Saxon Constitutional Protection was also presented, but where he also did not come into play – also because he was not considered reliable.