Jury finds expat businessman was Chinese spy asset
An Australian businessman recklessly made reports about people he should have suspected were Chinese spies, a jury has found.
Alexander Csergo, 59, was running a telecom company in Shanghai in November 2021 when he was approached on LinkedIn by a woman claiming to be from a Chinese think tank.
His decision to prepare false, plagiarized reports for two people later known only as Ken and Evelyn was enough for a NSW District Court jury on Friday to find him guilty of one count of reckless external interference.
The jury found that the 59-year-old, who worked on telecommunications infrastructure while in Shanghai, should have suspected Ken and Evelyn were working for China’s Ministry of State Security.
It used open source information to compile reports on a variety of topics, including mining, politics, defense and security.
He also claimed to have interviewed a number of people, including former prime minister Kevin Rudd.
Reports were delivered personally to Ken or Evelyn—sometimes at restaurants and cafes when no one else was present—in exchange for envelopes containing thousands of dollars in cash.
Although this information was worthless, the jury still found Csergo guilty after being told that crown prosecutors’ relationship with him and his contacts was valuable.
Ken also gave the 59-year-old a “shopping list” of sensitive topics to research when he returns to Australia in early 2023.
This document was found by local spies and police who raided his home in Sydney’s east in March that year.
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