- Marine scientists Tarmo Kõuts have been spying for China since 2018, Estonian prosecutors said.
- Sources say China’s efforts to infiltrate major European institutions are growing to rival Russia’s.
- A common tactic is for Chinese spies to use business conferences and academic forums to conduct espionage.
- See more stories on the Insider business page.
Intelligence officials across Europe were alarmed by the news that a leading scientist has been condemned in the Baltic States for spying on China.
Sources who spoke to Insider said the case is part of a long and worrying trend in China trying to infiltrate institutions across the continent, in some cases supplanting Russia as its most obvious opponent.
The stimulus was Estonia’s sentencing of 57-year-old Tarmo Kõuts to three years in prison. Kosuts had close ties to the Estonian military and reportedly worked on several delicate projects.
The arrest and conviction were first reported by the Daily Beast. EER, Estonia’s public broadcaster, also covered the case.
Prosecutors said Kouts started spying for China in 2018 and was secretly arrested last September. He had received about $ 20,000 and several luxury trips, according to reports provided to the media by Danish government officials.
Insider spoke with three European intelligence officers, two from Western Europe and one from a Baltic state. All requested anonymity, as they were not allowed to inform the media. Their identities are known to the Insider.
They described a counter-espionage environment in which China often posed the greatest spy threat to European institutions.
The Baltic official said: “Russian intelligence activity obviously has the highest priority in our neighborhood, but the amount of resources needed to monitor China is increasing for us every year. Our natural experience is more with the Russians, but we have been warning about China a long time ago. “
In February, Lithuania announced a ban on the use of Chinese security software vendors. At the same time, Estonian authorities warned that China and Russia posed similar threats.
An official from Belgium told Insider: “It has been under construction for about five years, we saw for the first time a huge increase in activity in Brussels, as it was obvious that [China’s] The EU’s mission was being used as cover. In 2019, it was clear that the Chinese had committed up to 250 intelligence officers to various academic and EU missions. “
French President Emmanuel Macron (L) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (R.)
Getty
A February 2019 report by EU foreign policy officials determined that at least 250 Chinese spies and up to 300 intelligence agents from other nations were operating in Brussels.
“It was when we realized that China not only had more spies, but that it was possible that most spies were Chinese,” said the Belgian official.
In January 2020, media reports revealed that a leading German EU envoy – along with two German lobbyists – was under investigation by German prosecutors for espionage, a case that appears to be underway in the German privacy-centered legal system.
And in April, European universities were warned that China was using academic exchanges as a cover for intelligence gathering activities.
A third intelligence officer from a NATO country said that the case in Estonia – in which Chinese agents used the cover of conference travel and academic environments to recruit, interrogate and even reward Kuts – was typical of the Chinese manual.
“They love the academic environment,” said the official, who cannot be identified in the press. “China strongly emphasizes the collection of intellectual property, scientific research and industrial techniques, as opposed to the Russians who focus more on the traditional collection of governmental intelligence.
“This means that work is usually done in more casual conference settings, where recruiting is easier. And the rewards are easy to cover up … Luxurious travel disguised as academic conferences, fine dining or prostitutes at legitimate conferences, it’s that easy. work assets in this way. “