Investigators have arrested three German citizens in West Germany on suspicion of espionage for China, prosecutors said, accusing them of gathering information on technology that could be used for military purposes.
The trio, named Herwig F., Ina F. and Thomas R., "are strongly suspected of having worked for the Chinese secret service" at some point before June 2022, prosecutors said in a statement.
The suspects were arrested in Düsseldorf and Bad Homburg in western Germany, and their homes and workplaces were also searched.
Thomas R. is suspected of having worked as an agent for an official of the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MDS), obtaining information in Germany about technology that could be used for military purposes.
He is said to have made contact with Herwig F. and his wife Ina F., who runs a company in Düsseldorf, in order to gain access to such technology and establish contacts in the German scientific and research community.
The company signed an agreement with a German university to provide "knowledge transfer", prosecutors said.
The first phase of the project was to prepare a study for a Chinese "contract partner" on state-of-the-art machine parts used in powerful marine engines, they said.
The contracting partner was the MDS official for whom Thomas R. worked, and the project was funded by Chinese government agencies, they said.
At the time of their arrest, the suspects were also said to have held further talks on research projects that could be useful in expanding China's naval combat capability.
The trio is also accused of purchasing a special laser from Germany on behalf of the MDS and exporting it to China without permission. /BGNES
