By ROD McGUIRK
A Sydney business consultant was found guilty on Friday of breaching Australia’s foreign interference laws by providing reports to two people he should have suspected of being Chinese spies.
Alexander Csergo, 59, is only the second person to be convicted under Australia’s covert interference and espionage laws that angered China when they were enacted in 2018.
The jury hearing the trial in the New South Wales District Court in Sydney found that Csergo should have suspected that a man and woman whom he only knew as Ken and Evelyn were working for China’s Ministry of State Security.
He was found guilty of reckless foreign interference and was released on bail over the weekend to return to court on Monday, when prosecutors will argue for him to be remanded in custody. He faces a possible prison sentence of up to 15 years when sentenced.
Csergo’s lawyers maintained that it used information from open sources as research. He also lied to the alleged spies by claiming he was interviewing several people, including Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister who is currently Australia’s ambassador to the United States.
Csergo was working in Shanghai as a communications and technology consultant in 2021 when Evelyn, who said she was from a Chinese think tank, contacted him through the professional networking platform LinkedIn.
He provided handwritten reports to Evelyn and Ken in exchange for cash on topics including defense, security, politics, and mining. Among the issues was the AUKUS trilateral partnership, which will see Britain help provide Australia with a fleet of submarines powered by US nuclear technology.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor using a generative artificial intelligence tool.
