UK border official, former Hong Kong cop convicted of assisting Chinese spy agency in Britain

Peter Wai, 40, and Bill Yuen, 65, both dual Chinese and British nationals, posed as legitimate police or intelligence officers to conduct surveillance and gather information about Hong Kong pro-democracy supporters and others deemed persons of interest, prosecutors said.

A UK border official and former Hong Kong police officer were convicted Thursday of spying for China in Britain by carrying out what prosecutors called ''shadow policing'' operations. Peter Wai, 40, and Bill Yuen, 65, both dual Chinese and British nationals, posed as legitimate police or intelligence officers to conduct surveillance and gather information about Hong Kong pro-democracy supporters and others deemed ''persons of interest,'' prosecutors said. A jury in the Central Criminal Court in London found them guilty on charges they violated the National Security Act by assisting a foreign spy service. Wai worked as a UK Border Force officer and was a special City of London constable and ran a private security company. Yuen was formerly a superintendent in the Hong Kong Police employed in London by the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office, the official overseas representative of Hong Kong's government. Prosecutors said Yuen's work went beyond his job description as office manager of the trade office. He allegedly helped gather intelligence for Hong Kong on pro-democracy activists and politicians who had moved to the UK in recent years after authorities introduced a wide-ranging national security law in the Asian financial hub. Yuen assigned tasks to Wai, who is accused of using police systems to gather information for his private work that was a cover for his spying. Wai was paid from a trade office account, prosecutors said. Phone messages showed the two conducted surveillance of former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law and that their interest extended beyond Hong Kong activists, who they referred to as ''cockroaches.'' Yuen told Wai to pay special attention to members of Parliament or government employees and in 2023 provided the name of prominent politicians, including Conservative lawmaker Iain Duncan Smith, a co-chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.