A jury at the Central Criminal Court in London found Peter Wai, 40, a U.K. Border Force officer, and Bill Yuen, 65, a former superintendent in the Hong Kong Police, guilty of violating the National Security Act by assisting a foreign spy service, prosecutors said Thursday. Wai was also convicted of misconduct in a public office.
“These convictions send a clear message that transnational repression, foreign interference, unauthorized surveillance, and attempts to operate outside the law will not be tolerated on British soil,” said Bethan David, head of counterterrorism at the Crown Prosecution Service. “This conduct was deliberate, coordinated and carried out with full knowledge of who it would benefit.”
Authorities said Wai and Yuen, both dual Chinese and British nationals, posed as legitimate police or intelligence officers to gather information about Hong Kong dissidents and pro-democracy supporters who had moved to the U.K. after Beijing imposed a wide-ranging national security law in the Asian financial hub. Yuen, employed as an office manager at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, went beyond his job description to help collate intelligence on the locations and activities of activists and politicians, according to prosecutors.
Wai, who also ran a private security company and served as a special City of London constable, was paid from a trade office account and misused police computer systems while off duty to run searches, prosecutors said. Phone messages obtained by investigators showed the two conducted surveillance of former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law and other activists they referred to as “cockroaches.” In one exchange, Yuen told Wai to pay special attention to members of Parliament or government employees, and in 2023 he provided the name of prominent politicians including Conservative lawmaker Iain Duncan Smith, a co-chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
The plot came to light after counterterrorism police, who had been conducting their own surveillance, disrupted an operation involving nine people attempting to break into the northern England home of a Hong Kong woman, Monica Kwong, in May 2024. Kwong had been accused by her former employer, Beijing-based businesswoman Tina Zou, of a £16 million ($21.8 million) fraud; Kwong described the claim as a setup. Among those arrested at the home were Wai, Zou, and two other retired Hong Kong police officers. Yuen, who was in contact with the group, was arrested in London.
Investigators then pieced together communications evidence showing that Yuen had assigned Wai to spy for Hong Kong and Chinese authorities. The two men were charged alongside Matthew Trickett, a U.K. immigration enforcement officer who had also been arrested at Kwong’s home; Trickett was later found dead in a suspected suicide. Zou was never charged. The jury could not reach a verdict on charges that the men committed foreign interference by breaking into Kwong’s home.
Following the convictions, Chinese Ambassador Zheng Zeguang was summoned to the British Foreign Office. “The activities carried out by these men, on behalf of China, are an infringement of our sovereignty and will never be tolerated,” Security Minister Dan Jarvis said in a statement. “We will continue to hold China to account and challenge them directly for actions which put the safety of people in our country at risk.”
Hong Kong’s government said it was not a party to the case but firmly opposed “unfounded allegations” against it or the London trade office. China’s embassy in the U.K. called the prosecution a political farce orchestrated through the abuse of law and manipulation of judicial procedures. It urged Britain to stop what it described as anti-China political manipulation and said China would take necessary measures to safeguard its interests.