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Speaker 1: From the newsroom.

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Speaker 2: A news still come to me.

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Speaker 1: Today. There, I'm Andrew Bucklow.

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Speaker 3: Well, I don't know if he saw this, but last

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Speaker 3: week in Canberra, a woman was charged with spying for China.

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Speaker 3: This is the first case of its kind here in Australia,

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Speaker 3: and I tell you what, it has opened a rare

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Speaker 3: window into the secret world of espionage happening right here

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Speaker 3: in our own backyard. Today we're going to hear from

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Speaker 3: the journalist who's been covering this story, and then from

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Speaker 3: the head of AZIO about the unbelievable number of spying

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Speaker 3: operations they've uncovered and stopped on our own soil. Were

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Speaker 3: joining me now is one of news dot com dot

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Speaker 3: u's senior reporters, Harrison Christian.

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Speaker 1: He's been covering this story for our side. Gooday, Harrison, Andy,

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Speaker 1: Good to be with you.

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Speaker 3: So an alleged Chinese spy was charged last week in Canberra.

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Speaker 1: What do we know about this person?

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Speaker 2: First of all, well, this woman she was arrested on Monday.

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Speaker 2: She can't be named because of a court order, but

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Speaker 2: we do know that she is a Chinese citizen and

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Speaker 2: she's also an Australian permanent resident who was based in Canberra.

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Speaker 2: So it appears that she's been in Australia for some time.

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Speaker 3: So what has this lady been charged with and if

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Speaker 3: she's sound guilty, what kind of punishment could they be

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Speaker 3: looking at hypothetically?

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Speaker 2: Well, Andy, she's been charged with covertly gathering information about

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Speaker 2: a local Buddhist group. The charges are under Australia's recent

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Speaker 2: foreign interference laws. They were only passed in twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 2: and this lady is only the third person to be

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Speaker 2: charged under the laws. The other two were Australians. She

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Speaker 2: is the first foreigner and there's serious charges. If found guilty,

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Speaker 2: she could spend a maximum of fifteen years in jail.

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Speaker 1: Bloody hell.

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Speaker 3: All right, So this alleged Chinese spy what was she

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Speaker 3: spying on?

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Speaker 2: The woman was allegedly spying on a group called Guan

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Speaker 2: yin Sitter Darmador of a mouthful there. It was founded

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Speaker 2: by a Chinese Australian man named Lu Junhong back in

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Speaker 2: the early two thousands. This group have centers across Australia

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Speaker 2: and actually around the world, and the one in Canberra

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Speaker 2: is located in a commercial building. It's known for serving

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Speaker 2: free vegetarian food. The group, Andy is a bit kooky.

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Speaker 2: They focus on past lives and reciting mantras, and followers

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Speaker 2: have actually claimed that the founder Lu Junholm is a

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Speaker 2: living Buddha. So they do fall outside the religious mainstream,

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Speaker 2: and in China that can get you in a lot

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Speaker 2: of trouble.

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Speaker 3: Do we know how this alleged Chinese spy was sending

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Speaker 3: information back to their bosses or who their bosses even were.

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Speaker 2: Well, the AFP will alleged that the woman was sending

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Speaker 2: info back to the Public Security Bureau of China. We

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Speaker 2: don't know how exactly she was doing this, but foreign

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Speaker 2: interferences difficult to prove, so they must believe they have

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Speaker 2: a strong case.

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Speaker 3: Andy, Yeah, absolutely, So why then would the Chinese government

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Speaker 3: or the state security over there want to spy on

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Speaker 3: this with like offshoot of a Buddhist kind of religion.

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Speaker 2: Well, we've been talking to experts about this, and one

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Speaker 2: professor told us that the Chinese government, the CCP, only

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Speaker 2: allows a few official religions in China and it views

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Speaker 2: any religious movements outside of that as a political threat. Now,

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Speaker 2: guang Yin Sita has actually been designated as a shier

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Speaker 2: Jao in China, which translates to evil cult and the

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Speaker 2: CCP has a long history of infiltrating and intimidating these

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Speaker 2: religious movements that it doesn't agree with.

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Speaker 3: And so what is there concern that this could kind

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Speaker 3: of spread in China if allowed to kind of fester

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Speaker 3: here in Australia.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, Andy, this expert told us that the reason the

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Speaker 2: CCP goes to the trouble of infiltrating these groups overseas

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Speaker 2: and interfering with Chinese Australians as they are worried that

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Speaker 2: the group may spread back to China and cause a

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Speaker 2: threat to the party there.

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Speaker 1: So when is this Chinese woman who's been charged going

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Speaker 1: to have a day in court? Do we know?

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Speaker 2: We're still firming up those details, but as soon as

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Speaker 2: we have it, it'll be on news dot com today.

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Speaker 3: Yet okay, well, this all comes at a time when

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Speaker 3: espionage is rife in Australia. That's according to the boss

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Speaker 3: of Australia's spy agency, who gave a pretty shocking speech

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Speaker 3: about a week and a half ago.

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Speaker 4: We need to understand espionage is not some quaint romantic fiction.

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Speaker 4: It's a real, present and costly danger.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: He listed some examples of the espionage they've uncovered in

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Speaker 3: our country. I'm going to play some of those comments

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Speaker 3: in just a moment. Welcome back. Well. Recently the head

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Speaker 3: of asy OH, which is Australia's spy agency, detailed some

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Speaker 3: of the espionage that's been going on here in our

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Speaker 3: own country, and I'll admit this blew my mind. Have

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Speaker 3: a listen to some of what Mike Burgess had to

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Speaker 3: say during the Hawk lecture.

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Speaker 4: A new iteration of great power competition is driving a

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Speaker 4: relentless hunger for strategic advantage, an insatiable appetite for inside information.

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Speaker 4: Russia remains a persistent and aggressive espionage threat. Last year,

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Speaker 4: two Russian born Australian citizens were arrested and charged with

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Speaker 4: an espionage related offense. Separately, I can confirm in twenty

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Speaker 4: twenty two a number of undeclared Russian intelligence officers were

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Speaker 4: removed from this country. The decision followed a lengthy as

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Speaker 4: of investigation that found the Russians recruiting proxies and agents

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Speaker 4: to obtain sensitive information and employing sophisticated tradecraft to disguise

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Speaker 4: their activities. But Russia is by no means the only

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Speaker 4: country we have to deal with. You would be genuinely

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Speaker 4: shocked by the number and names of country is trying

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Speaker 4: to steal our secrets. The obvious candidates are very active.

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Speaker 4: I've previously named China, Russia, and Iran, but many other

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Speaker 4: countries are also targeting anyone and anything that could give

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Speaker 4: them strategic or tactical advantage, including sensitive but unclassified information.

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Speaker 3: Pretty full on stuff, isn't it. The AZO boss said

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Speaker 3: they've disrupted twenty four major and foreign espionage operations in

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Speaker 3: the last three years alone, twenty four. That is more

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Speaker 3: than the previous eight years combined. You want some more examples,

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Speaker 3: you got it.

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Speaker 4: Spies have successfully recruited a security clearance holder who handed

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Speaker 4: over and official documents on free trade negotiations. Foreign companies

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Speaker 4: connected to intelligence services have sought to buy access to

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Speaker 4: sensitive personal data, sought to buy land near sensitive military sites,

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Speaker 4: and sought to collaborate with researchers developing sensitive technology. Foreign

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Speaker 4: intelligence services tried to get an asset employed as researcher

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Speaker 4: at a media outlet with the aim of shaping its

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Speaker 4: reporting and receiving early warning of critical stories. Spires convinced

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Speaker 4: a state bureaucrat to log into a database to obtain

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Speaker 4: the names and addresses of individuals considered dissidents by a

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Speaker 4: foreign regime nation state. Hackers compromised the network of a

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Speaker 4: peak industry body, stealing sensitive information about exports and foreign investment.

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Speaker 4: In another case, they hacked into the systems of a

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Speaker 4: law firm involved in a sensitive government litigation. A foreign

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Speaker 4: intelligence service directed the multiple agents and their family members

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Speaker 4: to apply for Australian government jobs, including the national security community,

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Speaker 4: to get access to classified information. A visiting academic with

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Speaker 4: the links to the foreign government broke into a restricted

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Speaker 4: tech lab and filmed its contents. ASIO investigated all these plots.

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Speaker 4: Some of them may yet result in police charges, so

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Speaker 4: I won't go into further detail here, but they are

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Speaker 4: just the tip of an espionage iceberg, spying at unprecedented

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Speaker 4: levels and with unprecedented sophistication, as I was seeing more

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Speaker 4: Australian target more aggressively than ever before.

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Speaker 3: Mike Burgess also revealed how much espionage is costing Australia

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Speaker 3: each year. I've got to say it is a gobsmacking amount.

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Speaker 4: Espionage costs the Australian economy twelve and a half billion

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Speaker 4: dollars in twenty three twenty four, twelve and a half

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Speaker 4: billion dollars. This includes the direct costs of known espionage

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Speaker 4: incidents such as state sponsored theft of intellectual property, as

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Speaker 4: well as the indirect cost of countering and responding. As

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Speaker 4: just one example, the Institute estimates foreign Spires stole nearly

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Speaker 4: two billion dollars of trade secrets and intellectual property from

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Speaker 4: Australian companies and businesses in twenty three twenty four. The

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Speaker 4: report includes a case study where SPIRE is hacked into

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Speaker 4: the computer network of a major Australian exporter, making off

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Speaker 4: with commercially sensitive information that theft gave them foreign country

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Speaker 4: a significant advantage in a subsequent contract negotiations, costing Australia

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Speaker 4: hundreds of millions of dollars. ASIO investigated similar cases and

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Speaker 4: others involving in person espionage. Several years ago, a delegation

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Speaker 4: from Overseas visited a sensitive Australian horticultural facility. During an

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Speaker 4: official tour of the site, a member of the delegation

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Speaker 4: broke away, entered a restricted lab and photographed a rare

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Speaker 4: and valuable variety of fruit treat An alert member staff

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Speaker 4: member discovered and deleted the images, but it emerged photos

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Speaker 4: were the only thing taken that day. Several of the

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Speaker 4: trees branches were missing. The delegate had snapped them off

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Speaker 4: and smuggled them out of Australia. Almost certainly, the stolen

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Speaker 4: plant material allowed scientists in the other country to reverse

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Speaker 4: engineer and replicate two decades of Australian research and development.

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Speaker 4: I'm sometimes asked, if there's so much espionage, why aren't

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Speaker 4: there more prosecutions. Three people are currently before the court

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Speaker 4: though on espn RS related charges, and I'm confident there

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Speaker 4: could be more if anyone tries to compromise orchits. But

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Speaker 4: not every case of ESPONADS can be prosecuted, particularly if

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Speaker 4: the perpetrators are offshore. In many circumstances, other tools, such

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Speaker 4: as visa cancelations or a knock on the door from

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Speaker 4: your friendly security service can be far more effective and

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Speaker 4: efficient than lengthy, costly prosecutions.

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Speaker 3: Cheez, Imagine a couple of ASIO agents rocking up to

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Speaker 3: your house and knocking on your door. I think I

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Speaker 3: do the old turn the lights off and hide behind

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Speaker 3: the couch trick, but something tells me they might see

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Speaker 3: through that. All right, that is it for today's episode.

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Speaker 3: Thank you so much for listening. I'll chat to you

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Speaker 3: again tomorrow.

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Speaker 2: Follow or subscribe to from the newsroom, wherever you get

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Speaker 2: your podcasts.