Chinese spies have allegedly made multiple attempts to ensnare British intelligence officials by means of seduction and blackmail.
More than six sources from different UK intelligence agencies said that Chinese intelligence agents have increasingly turned to the so-called ‘honeytrap’ technique with their attempts to wrangle sensitive intel, i newspaper reports.
Four sources contacted by the publication described in detail how individuals believed to have been working on behalf of the Chinese state had befriended them and attempted to engage in a sexual relationship with them.
Most of the encounters are understood to have taken place as ‘chance’ in-person meetings, though some are also reported to have been coordinated via social media.
One source described how he was approached while working in the UK by a woman he described as ‘young and attractive’ who asked him to take her for a drink that evening.
He said: ‘I had made it my goal to look invisible every day. I knew something was fishy about the whole interaction.’
Another source said ‘Chinese intelligence are all over this as a capability of spy craft’, adding that it ‘isn’t wholly successful against members of the intelligence community as we are well aware of the signs.’
It follows after William Wragg, a senior Conservative MP, was forced to quit his position on two Commons committees and give up the party whip after it emerged he had given out colleagues’ phone numbers to an anonymous individual on the dating app Grindr.
Wragg claims to have been coaxed by the culprit into sharing sexually explicit photographs before being subsequently blackmailed into sharing sensitive personal information about other MPs.
However, a former GCHQ official has since publicly said it is more likely a lone wolf was behind the incident rather than a hostile state.
Speaking with Politico, Ciaran Martin, ex-chief executive of the agency’s National Cyber Security Centre, said: ‘It’s plausible it could be someone on their own doing it for kicks.
‘The information they’ve sought via extortion isn’t what you’d expect from a nation state.
‘But we just don’t know.’
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