British intelligence officials have been repeatedly targeted in “honeytrap” plots as Chinese spies ramp up efforts to glean national secrets through seduction and blackmail, i can reveal.
Six UK intelligence sources spoke with i about the Chinese state’s increased use of the technique to try to extract secrets out of officials in intelligence, politics and business.
Four of the sources detailed attempts made by individuals, who were alleged to have been working for the Chinese state, to befriend and engage in sexual relationships with them in a bid to compromise intelligence.
The incidents are mostly “chance” in-person meetings with suspected Chinese agents in the UK or abroad, while one of the sources claims to have been targeted through the professional networking site LinkedIn.
Two of the attempts have occurred in the last two years, while a third took place in 2015 – representing recent incidences of a tactic historically used by China.
One intelligence source told i they were targeted with a honeytrap while working in the UK. The source was approached by a woman he described as “young and attractive” who got talking to him and asked if he’d take her out for a drink that evening.
“I had made it my goal to look invisible every day,” they said. “I knew something was fishy about the whole interaction.”
Their suspicions were later confirmed when he found out that the woman who approached him was a known Chinese spy.
“Every officer is briefed that there’s a high chance you will be targeted by this activity at one time in your career,” a second UK intelligence source said. “You would feel odd if you weren’t approached.”
Another source said: “Chinese intelligence are all over this as a capability of spycraft.” But they added it “isn’t wholly successful against members of the intelligence community as we are well aware of the signs”.
None of the attempts were successful, according to intelligence sources, who spoke to i anonymously in a bid to warn of the tactics that were being used by hostile states to draw secrets from the UK intelligence community.
In the interests of national security, i has excluded some details from its reporting of this story.
Intelligence officials are well prepared against clandestine efforts to glean secrets from them, but sources warned that attempts were on the rise as tensions between China and the West increase. They fear that more politicians and businesspeople – untrained in how to spot attempts– will fall victim to honeytraps.
“We are now entering an election cycle,” one of the sources told i. “How do you damage credibility in democracy?”
Stephan Blancke, associate fellow and and expert in foreign espionage at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) said the honeytrap technique was one often deployed by Chinese agents, usually as a tool to target Western politicians and business officials visiting China.
“I know that in civil political society, organisations that are a nuisance to the Chinese government – there is quite a number of Chinese operations to infiltrate [these] organisations and feed information back to embassies,” Mr Blancke told i.
The warnings from the intelligence community come as the UK Government is embroiled in a honeytrap saga that has rocked Westminster, first revealed by Politico. Unsolicited messages from an unknown sender have targeted dozens of politicians, their staff, and political journalists in a bid to compromise parliamentarians.
Several were sent explicit images and at least two MPs are reported to have reciprocated, according to The Times.
Senior MP William Wragg resigned the Conservative whip after admitting he gave out politicians’ phone numbers to a suspected scammer in the parliamentary sexting scandal. The MP for Hazel Grove said he feared that intimate images he had sent to the anonymous individual would be leaked unless he gave them information.
The approaches made to the UK intelligence community differ from those made in Westminster. Firstly, there is no evidence of foreign involvement in the parliamentary scandal. Secondly, the attempts were all made through dating apps or Whatsapp, while most of the attempts on UK intelligence sources were made in person by known foreign agents.
However, the aim is similar. Entrap the target through seduction, and eke out national security secrets through blackmail.
This week, France’s Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), claimed French spies are immune to honeytrap schemes because their wives “already know that they are having affairs”.
A history of Chinese honeytrap plots
Honeytrap tactics have been used by most spy agencies across the globe for decades, but it is written into Chinese spycraft history, dating back to a 6th-century essay detailing the “Thirty-Six Stratagems” to be used in politics and war.
Among a list of techniques that can be deployed to subvert and defeat an opponent, the essay lists “Měi rén jì”, or “the beauty trap” to ensure a target becomes so “enamoured with the beauty that he neglects his duties and allows his vigilance to wane”.
The UK intelligence community have long warned about Chinese honeytrap attempts. A 14-page document entitled “The Threat from Chinese Espionage” was distributed to British businesses and financial institutions in 2008 to warn against Chinese efforts to target western businesspeople using sexual blackmail.
The MI5 document explicitly warned of Chinese attempts to “exploit vulnerabilities such as sexual relationships … to pressurise individuals to co-operate”.
Similarly in 2014, UK military officials were given a security manual detailing how to avoid Chinese honeytraps. The Ministry of Defence document warned that China may attempt to blackmail officials “through knowledge of marital infidelity or sexual activity” in a subtle and long-term approach.
An agent claimed that the Russians realised generating blackmail by entering into illicit relationships with French spies did not work. ‘Go ahead, my wife already knows,’ was a standard reply according to a documentary examining the French spy agency.
Multiple UK intelligence sources say the blackmail attempts by Chinese forces have been on the increase in recent years, as tensions grow between Beijing and the West.
Two UK sources also said they were approached by “verified Chinese agents” in honeytrap attempts while on operations, but they did not want to go into detail about the approaches, in order to protect national security of the missions they were working on at the time. The most recent of these came in the summer of 2023.
Another UK intelligence source said he was approached twice while on trips to Hong Kong in the mid-2000s by individuals who explicitly offered sexual relationships – showing the long history China has in targeting UK intelligence officials with the tactic.
They said they were given strict instructions to not mix with any strangers during the trips, and “every officer going” was told there was a “99 per cent chance” it would happen and they would need to “just look out for it”.
“Their memorandum of intent was to get you back to their hotel room which, no doubt, would have been bugged with cameras,” they told i. “I’m not aware if any officers were ever actually compromised, as we were well warned, and you would be out of a job if you were.”
Tory MP Iain Duncan Smith said it was “no surprise” that Beijing would be targeting the UK intelligence community, and called for China to be labelled as a “systemic threat” by the Government’s integrated review.
“It is clear that China is at a state of war with the UK, US, and other Western states,” Mr Duncan Smith claimed. “It is incredibly hard for us to counter attacks to our democracy and those who protect it if we are not realising that China is a systemic threat.”
/inews.co.uk