Espionage activities

A man in Meishan, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, was sentenced to life imprisonment for espionage by filming videos and taking photos of a certain military base and warships in a Chinese port after being subverted by foreign intelligence personnel, Sichuan Provincial Public Security Department announced on Sunday.

On the eve of the ninth National Security Education Day, which falls on Monday, Sichuan police announced six typical cases related to national security. 

The department exposed that since October 2021, Li, a native of Meishan, sought ways to make quick money through illegal means on QQ. He was recruited by foreign intelligence personnel and was tasked with filming videos and taking photos of a military base and warships in a certain port in China (which were identified by national authorities as confidential materials). He made over 200,000 yuan ($27,630) in illegal income. In February 2022, the Meishan Public Security Bureau successfully cracked the case. On January 8, 2024, Li was sentenced to life imprisonment for espionage.

In 2023, the public security organs in Guangyuan city, successfully uncovered a case of illegal infiltration activities by an overseas religious organization. It was found that since 2017, the criminal surnamed Huang, under the instructions of the overseas religious organization, collaborated with Yang and Tang to establish the "Zhengfa Network Bookstore" under the guise of promoting Buddhism, printing over 120,000 illegal religious publications, and vigorously developing believers within the country, spreading erroneous religious thoughts. 

On November 13, 2023, the People's Court of Jiange county, sentenced Huang to three years in prison with a five-year probation and a fine of 10,000 yuan in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law. 

In March 2022, a key member of the Almighty God cult, also known as Eastern Lightning, Peng, was carrying out illegal activity in Xichong county, Nanchong. The Xichong Public Security Bureau then established a special case, conducted long-term operations, and uncovered illegal activities of the Almighty God cult in Nanchong, Guang'an, Dazhou, and Guangyuan. 

Then in March 2023, the Nanchong public security organs conducted a concentrated crackdown, arresting 88 key members of the Almighty God cult, destroying 40 dens, seizing 34 computers, 70 mobile phones, over 150 mobile storage devices, confiscating over 510,000 yuan in funds related to the case, over 600 anti-cult books, 30 tons of grain and oil, and transferring 41 suspects for prosecution. 

Another typical case concerns the promotion of terrorism. Since September 2023, the criminal surnamed Yu has been downloading and uploading terrorist videos through his mobile QQ to his personal cloud storage, and sharing the links containing the videos in certain QQ and WeChat groups for others to view. According to the Anti-Terrorism Law, the Jianwei County Public Security Bureau in Leshan city administratively detained Yu for 10 days for disseminating and illegally possessing materials promoting terrorism.

The Ministry of State Security also announced several typical espionage cases on Monday, exposing that some "military enthusiasts" have a weak awareness of national security and have been exploited by malicious individuals to intentionally or unintentionally leak state secrets, compromising national security. 

For example, a deputy general manager of a certain company surnamed Zhang, illegally filmed military airport facilities and aircraft deployments multiple times and spread the content online. After four contents were identified as confidential military secrets, Zhang was sentenced to one year and two months in prison with a one-year and six-month probation for the crime of illegally obtaining state secrets. 

In addition, a railway equipment factory electrician surnamed Ye, also illegally filmed military airport bunkers, equipment, etc. multiple times and uploaded the photos to a map software with coordinates marked. After four items were identified as confidential military secrets and one item as military secret, Ye was sentenced to two years in prison with a three-year probation for the crime of illegally obtaining state secrets. 

Their actions have leaked military secrets and threatened national security, and they have paid a heavy price for it, the ministry said.

Global Times