The Norwegian who is in custody on suspicion of having spied on behalf of China paid hundreds of thousands of kroner for reports on politically sensitive subjects. The assignments were posted on an open website, where he advertised under a false name, reveals VG.
– This appears to be part of a coordinated collection, says intelligence expert Tom Røseth to the newspaper.
When he returned to Norway after a trip to China, the Norwegian security service PST pounced on the 35-year-old man.
– We arrested a Norwegian citizen yesterday morning for what are called serious intelligence activities for the benefit of China, prosecutor Thomas Blom told Reuters in connection with the custody hearing last Tuesday.
According to the Norwegian security service, “data-carrying devices” are suspected of playing an important role in the evidence against the man. He is now in custody for four weeks.
Studied at leading Chinese university
The case comes not long after GP’s and SVT Uppdrag’s review revealed that a Chinese journalist was expelled from Sweden after Säpo accused her of being a serious security threat. Also elsewhere in Europe, a number of cases linked to security-threatening activities from China have been revealed this year:
In Germany, an assistant to a leading EU parliamentarian has been arrested on suspicion of being a spy, as well as three other people, where the suspicions seem rather to be about corporate espionage linked to sensitive technology. In the UK, two British citizens were also prosecuted in the spring, one of whom had close ties to the then-ruling Conservative Party.
The Norwegian suspected spy studied for several years at one of China’s leading universities. He also, like several of the other current cases, has good contacts in politics, having been active for a long time in the Norwegian ruling Workers’ Party. In Oslo, he has been running a company that deals with “strategic analyses” from an international perspective for the past year.
Paid for reports on Taiwan and nuclear weapons
Now the Norwegian newspaper VG reveals that in recent years he paid out the equivalent of around 200,000 kroner to various people whom he hired to write reports on a range of sensitive topics. This despite the fact that in the meantime he had no taxed income at all in Norway.
– The fact that he apparently had so much financial means is interesting, says Tom Røseth, head teacher in intelligence at the Defense Staff School, to VG.
The reports covered a range of topics: How the EU and the US could respond militarily to Chinese aggression against Taiwan, sensitive technical components and raw materials, and the US view on Russian nuclear weapons. When he contacted the report authors, he used an alias, for “privacy reasons”.
– I reacted to the fact that he had used a fake name at first. But because it was a Norwegian company, my vigilance was lower, says a British researcher who wrote reports for the man, to VG.
The lawyer of the man suspected of being a spy has not wanted to respond to the new information in detail, but tells VG that he denies the criminal suspicions.
– As the defendant’s defender, I have no comments on this. As for the defendant himself, I cannot convey his views. I don’t have the opportunity to do that, given the restrictions he is subject to, says lawyer Marius Dietrichson to VG.
