A British Immigration Officer Was Secretly Working for Chinese Intelligence. He Used the Home Office Database to Hunt Down Hong Kong Dissidents Living in the UK.

A serving UK Border Force officer has been found guilty of spying for Chinese intelligence, using his privileged access to the Home Office’s immigration database to track Hong Kong pro-democracy activists living in Britain. The case, heard at the Old Bailey, has sent shockwaves through the security services and prompted the Chinese ambassador to be summoned by the Foreign Office.

Chi Leung “Peter” Wai, 40, who holds both British and Hong Kong passports, was convicted under the National Security Act of assisting a foreign intelligence service. He was also found guilty of misconduct in public office. His co-defendant Chung Biu “Bill” Yuen, 65, a former Hong Kong police officer who became Wai’s handler, was also found guilty of the same intelligence offence.

Security Minister Dan Jarvis described the men’s activities as “an infringement of our sovereignty” that would never be tolerated, adding that the government would continue to hold China directly accountable for actions putting people in the UK at risk.

Access, Betrayal and a Database with No Safeguards

Wai joined Border Force at Heathrow Airport in December 2020, giving him access to the Atlas database, one of the most sensitive immigration systems in the country, containing detailed records on foreign nationals living in the UK. He used that access on his days off and sick days, earning money on the side by running searches on Hong Kongers who had fled pro-democracy crackdowns. The court heard there were no checks in place to prevent him from doing this.

His contempt for those he was tracking was not hidden. In messages to his contacts, Wai referred to Hong Kong dissidents as “cockroaches.” When he first started at Heathrow, he wrote to former Hong Kong Police Criminal Intelligence Bureau chief superintendent Eddie Ma: “Will not let any cockroaches in.” When he later shared information on newly arrived dissidents, Ma responded: “The head office seems to be interested at these informations.”

Before his role at Heathrow, Wai had an extensive career inside British institutions. He served in the Royal Navy for eight years. He was a Metropolitan Police officer from 2015 to 2019. After leaving the Met, he became a volunteer constable for the City of London Police and set up his own security company, D5 Security. He also provided security at events in Chinatown. This career history gave him deep institutional knowledge of British law enforcement, which he was willing to betray entirely.

A Shadow Policing Operation in British Streets

Wai and Yuen were introduced in 2017 at a Chinatown restaurant by a prominent figure known to be sympathetic to Chinese government policy on Hong Kong. By mid-2021, Yuen had formally become Wai’s handler, receiving regular reports on the activities of Hong Kong dissidents and pro-democracy protesters in the UK. The court also heard that special attention was paid to British politicians, including Conservative MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith.

Wai drew a fellow Border Force officer into his network. Matthew Trickett, a former Royal Marine, was recruited to assist with the surveillance of Hong Kong activists. In November 2023, Trickett was tasked by Wai with arranging for high-profile activist Nathan Law, one of the Hong Kongers with a HK$1 million bounty placed on his head by Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee Ka-chiu, to speak at the Oxford Union.

Another target was Finn Lau, also carrying a bounty, who had been a prominent democracy protester in 2019 and 2020 before escaping from Hong Kong. Lau told the BBC after the verdict that he no longer feels safe in the UK and has had to adopt anti-surveillance tactics as a permanent part of his daily life.

The Operation That Got Them Caught

By 2024, MI5 had become aware of the group. The intelligence service planted an audio bugging device in the flat of Monica Kwong, a Hong Kong woman living in Pontefract with her young son, who had been accused of theft by a former employer in Hong Kong, a charge she strongly denies.

Wai used the Atlas database to locate Kwong, confirmed her presence by sending a fake parcel delivery, and then mounted surveillance on her home. On 30 April 2024, Tina Zou, the woman claiming money was owed to her, flew into Heathrow with a group of colleagues and former Hong Kong police officers and travelled up to Pontefract. After Kwong failed to answer her door, the group resorted to filming under it with a snake camera and pouring water there, claiming a maintenance leak. On 1 May 2024, they broke into the flat and found it empty. MI5’s recording device captured everything.

When police moved in, Wai threw a fake warrant card out of the window. The card falsely suggested he held the rank of superintendent in the City of London Police.

The jury could not reach a verdict on whether the events in Pontefract constituted foreign interference, and the prosecution confirmed it would not seek a retrial on that charge.

Tragically, Trickett was found dead in a suspected suicide in Grenfell Park, Maidenhead, shortly after he and the others were charged and appeared in court. His inquest is scheduled for November.

Wai and Yuen have been remanded in custody pending sentencing, with a date to be fixed from 15 May. Head of Counter Terrorism Policing London Commander Helen Flanagan described the pair’s activity as “both sinister and chilling.”

The case raises serious and uncomfortable questions about the vetting of individuals with access to sensitive government databases, and the apparent absence of any monitoring system to flag unusual search patterns by authorised users. A Border Force officer ran a shadow intelligence operation for years on behalf of a foreign state, within the very system designed to protect the people of the United Kingdom. (Source: BBC)