An Australian businessman recklessly compiled reports for individuals whom he should have suspected were Chinese spies, a jury has found.
Alexander Csergo, 59, was running a telecoms business in Shanghai when he was approached on LinkedIn in November 2021 by a woman claiming to be from a Chinese think tank.
His decision to then prepare fake, plagiarised reports for two individuals only known as Ken and Evelyn was enough for a NSW District Court jury on Friday to find him guilty of one count of reckless foreign interference.
The 59-year-old, who had been working on telecommunications infrastructure while in Shanghai, should have suspected that Ken and Evelyn were working for China’s Ministry of State Security, the jury found.
He used open-source information to compile reports on a variety of topics including mining, politics, defence and security.
He also falsely claimed he had interviewed a number of individuals, including former prime minister Kevin Rudd.
The reports were handed to Ken or Evelyn in person – sometimes at restaurants and cafes devoid of other people – in exchange for envelopes containing the equivalent of thousands of dollars in cash.
Despite this information being worthless, the jury still found Csergo guilty after being told by crown prosecutors that the relationship with him and his contacts were valuable.
Ken also handed the 59-year-old a “shopping list” of sensitive topics to research when he returned to Australia in early 2023.
This document was found by domestic spies and police when they raided his eastern Sydney home in March that year.
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