Suspected spies are said to have supplied China with special lasers – two men in custody
“We are very vigilant. It’s a good day for our investigative authorities in Germany.”
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office has had three Germans arrested on suspicion of spying for the Chinese secret service. “It is a great success that we were able to make three more arrests today,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office had three Germans arrested. Two men and a woman are said to have worked for a Chinese secret service. They also negotiated a project “to expand China’s maritime combat power.” Two are now in custody.
DThe Federal Prosecutor’s Office has arrested three German citizens who are said to have worked for a Chinese secret service. Thomas R. and the couple Herwig and Ina F. were arrested in Düsseldorf and Bad Homburg, the authorities in Karlsruhe said.
The two men were taken into custody on Monday evening. 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 on Tuesday.
The suspects’ homes and workplaces were previously searched. The two men and the woman are strongly suspected of having worked for the Chinese secret service MSS since at least summer 2022. Thomas R. is said to have obtained information in Germany about innovative technologies that could be used militarily for the MSS.
The couple Herwig F. and Ina F., who run a company from Düsseldorf, are said to have helped him. With the help of her company, she was able to establish contact and collaborate with people from German science and research. The couple are said to have concluded a cooperation agreement with a German university for science transfer through their company.
According to information from WELT, the F. couple’s company is based in London. The company’s website lists projects in the areas of automotive, aviation, sports equipment and renewable energy.
Three cars drive onto the grounds of the Federal Court of Justice – the Federal Prosecutor’s Office has had three Germans arrested on suspicion of espionage
Source: dpa/Rene Priebe
The first phase, according to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, involved the preparation of a study for a Chinese contractual partner on the state of the art of machine parts that are also important for the operation of powerful ship engines, for example in combat ships. The secret service agent was behind the Chinese contractual partner and the financing is said to have come from the Chinese state.
In addition, the accused purchased a special laser on behalf of China and exported it to China without authorization. At the time of their arrest, the accused were said to have already conducted further negotiations on research projects that “could be useful for expanding China’s maritime combat power in particular.”
Did the German study in China?
Photos available to WELT show the suspected MSS agent R. at various conferences in China. He was once introduced here as a graduate of Peking University. In Jinan in 2018, R. apparently took part in the Sino-German SME Cooperation & Communication Conference 2018. According to media reports, the event was about exploring “opportunities for cooperation with Chinese companies”. A keynote speech was given by SPD politician Martin Schulz, who can be seen in a photo with several Chinese representatives and R.
R. is said to have registered a company in Shanghai in the past. Together with Ina and Herwig F., he was involved in a “Smart City Association” in Bad Homburg. There he presented himself as an expert for “German-Chinese technology transfer projects in electromobility”.
Thomas R. was introduced at a conference in China. According to the text, he studied in China in the 1980s
Source: WELT/Screenshot/lennartpfahler
According to information from Karlsruhe, the suspects will be brought before the investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice on Monday and Tuesday. The findings on the three suspects came from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Haldenwang: Suspects have been in our sights for a long time
According to their own statements, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had been keeping an eye on the arrested Germans for a long time. “As the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, we tracked down this person very early on and continued to monitor their behavior and activities,” said the President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Thomas Haldenwang.
Cases of so-called proliferation occur again and again, said Haldenwang. The term means the unauthorized transfer of military material or the technology or relevant knowledge required for it. There are such cases with regard to Iran, North Korea, Russia or China. Those involved put a lot of energy into concealing their activities, for example by concluding sham transactions, falsely declaring goods or using intermediaries for exports.
According to Haldenwang, the spying for China was not an isolated case, but rather a “quite comprehensive business.” In fact, awareness of the risks of cooperation with China has increased in Germany in recent years. For years, economic collaborations had been initiated with little consideration for the outflow of sometimes critical knowledge about technologies. The security authorities are also critically monitoring the cooperation between German and Chinese universities. China would make great efforts to obtain information and components, especially in the areas of chemistry, optics, semiconductors, aviation and quantum computing.