Daniel SandfordUK correspondent
A retired Hong Kong police officer and Border Force official – who both held British passports – are accused of engaging in “shadow policing” in the UK on behalf of China, a court has heard.
Chung Biu “Bill” Yuen, 65, and Chi Leung “Peter” Wai, 38, are alleged to have carried out surveillance on Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners claiming asylum in the UK.
They are charged with offences under the National Security Act.
Yuen is a former Hong Kong police officer who was working for the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, while Wai was working for the UK Border Force, was a volunteer Special Constable with the City of London Police and used to work for the Metropolitan Police.
They are accused of working with Matthew Trickett, a former British Royal Marine and UK Border Force officer, who was found dead in May 2024 after being released on bail.
Opening the case for the prosecution, Duncan Atkinson KC said that Wai had misused Home Office and police computer systems to conduct searches for personal gain.
This included gathering information about people from Hong Kong claiming asylum in the UK and at one point he was being paid £2,000 a month, according to the prosecution.
Atkinson said: “By shadow policing operations, I mean the gathering of information about persons of interest to the Hong Kong authorities, undertaking surveillance on such persons and otherwise acting as if they were entitled, in this country, to act as a law enforcement or state intelligence service, when no such entitlement existed.”
He said this had coincided with “determined measures” by the Hong Kong authorities “to extend their reach beyond their jurisdiction in relation to people of interest to them”.
The prosecution says this included conducting surveillance on pro-democracy campaigners who had had bounties put on their heads by the Hong Kong authorities.
“The bounties offered approximately £100,000 for information leading to identifying the person’s whereabouts or their capture,” Atkinson said.
The Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee had said that the aim was to target the individuals so as to “end their destiny of being an abscondee”, adding that they would be “pursued for life”.
Among those the pair allegedly targeted was Monica Kwong, who has been accused of fraud by her employer Tina Zou. She says the accusation is false and she had been “set up”.
According to the prosecution, Yuen and Wai “undertook surveillance on her address, as if they were a legitimate UK police operation”.
Atkinson told the jury the men decided “to force their way into Monica Kwong’s home as if they were a legitimate police operation”, at which point the UK police, who were watching, intervened.
The jury heard that Yuen holds British and Hong Kong passports. He is employed by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) in London as an office manager and is the third most senior person there.
Wai was a UK Border Force employee and a City of London Police Special Constable. He also set up and ran a company called D5 Security. He was born in Hong Kong and also holds British and Hong Kong passports. He also worked as a consultant for a private security company called My Local Bobby which has a particular focus on the Chinese community in London’s Soho.
The prosecution said Wai appeared to have been misusing police computer systems or databases as far back as 2018. In 2020 he sent an acquaintance of his a message “I will ask a mate to do a pnc [Police National Computer] check”.
Atkinson said: “Peter Wai was willing to procure or assist in unauthorised checks on the Police National Computer.”
The jury heard that in April 2023 when a pro-democracy protestor identified as Witness Y confronted a senior Hong Kong official called Christopher Hu in the City of London Wai had approached them, shown his police ID, and threatened to arrest them before getting into the car with Hu. He was not on duty that day, the prosecution said.
The prosecution said that Wai posted information about Hong Kong protestors in a WhatsApp group called Eagle Point Human Resources Company. After posting information about one protestor he received the reply, “Wai Sir, salute to you on behalf of the country”, which the prosecution says was referring to China.
Atkinson said Wai was in touch with Eddie Ma, a former Chief Superintendent of the Hong Kong Police about “infiltrating” a pro-democracy group called “Hongkongers in the UK”.
The prosecution said that evidence suggests that in November 2020 Ma engaged Wai on a “retainer” of £2,000 per month with “additional bonus payments” for “valuable intelligence”. Ma referred to Hong Kong dissidents as “cockroaches”.
Wai would send information to Ma about Hongkongers arriving in the UK, including those claiming asylum, according to the prosecution.
The prosecution said that In February 2021 Wai sent Ma a message “I am back to the airport, to clean up this area, will not let any cockroaches in”. Another member of the same WhatsApp group replied: “No….let them in, hug them, get more contacts from them.”
By April 2023 Trickett became involved, according to the prosecution.
Trickett conducted a search for the activist and politician Nathan Law on the Home Office’s ATLAS database, the prosecution said, and Wai instructed him to do some surveillance of two other activists Finn Lau and Christopher Mung. Law, Lau and Mung were all the subjects of bounties of 1 million Hong Kong dollars (approximately £100,000). In November 2023 Trickett organised surveillance of Law when he was at the Oxford Union.
Yuen, of Hackney, east London, and Wai, of Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey, both deny charges of assisting a foreign intelligence service, and foreign interference. Wai also denies a charge of misconduct in public office in relation to conducting searches of Home Office databases.
The trial is expected to last six or seven weeks.