A Singaporean man living in Washington D.C. has pleaded guilty to being an 'illegal agent of a foreign power' This is the most recent event in a rising tension between
Washington and Beijing. Jun Wei Yeo, also known as Dickson Yeo, worked for Chinese intelligence for about 5 years, and on Friday pleaded guilty in a federal court to working as an illegal agent of the Chinese government in 2015-19, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.
At the time he was a PhD student at the National University of Singapore.
In his guilty plea, Yeo admitted to scouting for Americans with high-level security clearance and getting them to write reports for fake clients, as well as collecting their resumes and sending all the information back to Beijing.
According to court documents, he was recruited by Chinese intelligence in 2015.
He was also accused of using a ‘professional networking site’ to contact specific targets who could possibly have access to sensitive, or “non-public” information.
Also last Friday, a Chinese military-linked scientist, who had previously been using China’s San Francisco consulate as shelter, surrendered to US authorities. Her arrest followed the shuttering of the Chinese consulate in Houston, which was allegedly linked to espionage operations and Intellectual Property theft.
This caused retaliation from Beijing, which in response ordered closure of the US consulate in Chengdu, also under espionage allegations.
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