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July 27, 2020 02:01 am

How a Chinese Agent Used LinkedIn to 'Lure' American Targets

Today the BBC told the story of Jun Wei Yeo, "an ambitious and freshly enrolled Singaporean PhD student" who was gradually recruited by Chinese intelligence. Yeo "would end up using the professional networking website LinkedIn, a fake consulting company and cover as a curious academic to lure in American targets."Some of the targets that Yeo found by trawling through LinkedIn were commissioned to write reports for his "consultancy", which had the same name as an already prominent firm. These were then sent to his Chinese contacts. One of the individuals he contacted worked on the U.S. Air Force's F-35 fighter jet programme and admitted he had money problems. Another was a U.S. army officer assigned to the Pentagon, who was paid at least $2,000 (£1,500) to write a report on how the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan would impact China... According to the court documents, his handlers advised him to ask targets if they "were dissatisfied with work" or "were having financial troubles"... In 2018, Yeo also posted fake online job ads for his consulting company. He told investigators he received more than 400 CVs with 90% of them coming from "US military and government personnel with security clearances". Some were passed to his Chinese handlers... Dickson Yeo does not appear to have got as far with his contacts as his handlers would have liked. But in November 2019, he travelled to the U.S. with instructions to turn the army officer into a "permanent conduit of information", his signed statement says. He was arrested before he could ask. The 39-year-old now faces up to 10 years in prison for being an "illegal agent of a foreign power" — but the article notes he was "aided by an invisible ally — the LinkedIn algorithm. "Each time Yeo looked at someone's profile it would suggest a new slate of contacts with similar experience that he might be interested in..."

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