Chinese spies 'used LinkedIn to lure me to Hong Kong'

Former UKIP spokesman Gawain Tauler flew to Hong Kong after Beijing security officials posed as businessmen seeking his consulting services. Credit: STEVE FINN

Nigel Farage's former political strategist claims Chinese spies used LinkedIn to lure him to Hong Kong as part of a years-long campaign to recruit British defectors.

Gawain Tauler, Nigel Farage's former spokesman for the British Independence Party and later the Brexit Party, said Beijing's spies offered him thousands of euros in used banknotes when they delivered him to the former British colony.

This came to light after after The Times exposed a network of fake LinkedIn accounts operated by Chinese intelligence and used to attack the British.

Mr Tauler said he was lured into a trap after he responded to messages offering a consulting job and a business meeting. in Hong Kong, a financial center that was a British dependency for a century before being returned to China in 1997.

Chinese, Russian and Iranian spies used Microsoft-owned LinkedIn to try to recruit potential intelligence agents.

Mr Tauler said that in 2018 he arrived at a Hong Kong hotel selected by his online contacts. He said that his Chinese handlers offered him a mobile phone with a pre-installed spy app to share confidential documents via Instagram.

“With this app, I could take a photo of a document, and then that document could be inserted into a photo that I I would post it on Instagram,” Mr. Tauler said.

According to him, the photo containing the document can then be downloaded from Instagram and its sensitive content extracted by Chinese agents.

Mr Tauler informed the security services of what had happened upon his return to London.

< p>Professor Alan Woodward of the University of Surrey said that the spying method described by Mr. Towler is known as steganography.

Hiding sensitive documents inside image files «is a great way to leak data,» said Professor Woodward. «The key problem is that it's undetectable, so no one really knows how widespread its use is.»

Mr Tauler said the failed attempt to recruit him as a Chinese agent has ended by being ordered to sign a handwritten waiver of its use. a disclosure agreement before he can fly back to London.

A LinkedIn spokesperson said the moderators are «looking for signs of government-sponsored activity and deleting fake accounts using the information we discover and data from various sources «. sources, including government agencies.»

Meta, owner of Instagram, declined to comment.