Times: UK civil servants sold secret data to Chinese intelligence officer

A single Chinese spy is using LinkedIn profiles to try to lure thousands of British officials to hand over state secrets in exchange for large sums of money and lucrative business deals, Report informs referring to The Times.

The intelligence officer for Beijing’s main spy agency created a string of aliases and fake companies to target security officials, civil servants, scientists and academics with access to classified information or commercially sensitive technology.

Western security services believe the operative, whose main alias is Robin Zhang, is the most prolific spy for a hostile state working against British interests in a generation. He is understood to have operated almost entirely from behind a desk, probably from the Chinese Ministry of State Security’s headquarters in Beijing.