UK researcher says former British police officer tried to compromise him after organised crime report

Dr David Wilson, author of a Home Office-sponsored report on the Chinese state and organised crime in the UK that was declassified in February, said a former British police officer who was a Chinese citizen before being naturalised in the UK attempted to compromise him by inviting him to a specific Chinese restaurant.

Wilson, a former police inspector and the West Midlands regional coordinator for the national Organised Immigration Crime Domestic Taskforce, said he had been warned during early interviews with former Hong Kong police officers that he would be targeted for honey traps or bribes. "Within about two weeks of getting this warning, I receive this phone call," Wilson said. "It was someone who I loosely knew. It was an ex-Chinese citizen who was a naturalised British citizen. He had been part of a British law enforcement institution. He said: 'Listen, why don't you meet me at this specific Chinese restaurant?' Straight away, as soon as he said that, I knew the restaurant, I knew who owned it, and I knew where this was going, because I'd been warned about it, and it was literally word for word."

The caller said he had "some people who can help you" but declined to identify them, Wilson said. "'It doesn't matter, there's a few people, why don't you come along and just see what they've got to say?' I said: 'Thanks very much, really kind of you, but actually, no.'"

Wilson said he also received around 20 to 25 LinkedIn connection requests from women with empty profiles and no posted content. "There's nothing on the profile. They haven't posted anything, there was no detail. It was just a photograph of a very, very beautiful woman. Before I started, I'd been on LinkedIn for 10 years. No one ever contacted me," he said.

A man describing himself as a businessman contacted Wilson claiming close ties to the Chinese government and offering help, Wilson said. "Someone contacted me again and said: 'Listen, I'm very interested in what you're doing.' The man went on to claim he had 'ties to the Chinese government, very close ties, and I have people who can really help you with this,'" Wilson recounted. Wilson said he reported the businessman's profile to the appropriate authorities and told him to stop contacting him. "It was really persistent. 'The Chinese are such wonderful people. They're so generous. Look at all these links that I'm sending you about the good work that they've done.' I said my loyalty is to the government and to the UK, not the Chinese government. In the end, I said: 'Listen, I've reported your profile to the appropriate authorities. You need to stop contacting me now.'"

Wilson said he believes the approaches bear the imprint of the United Front Work Department, an organ of the Chinese Communist Party. "The motivation is to mitigate your findings – which they know what they will be if you have been doing your job right – to make it more favourable to the Chinese government," he said. "So it's more than one attempt at compromise. So we would suggest some sort of centralised will to do that."

Wilson's report, based on interviews with officials from 14 UK law enforcement agencies, detailed links between senior members of organised criminal groups and those in the Chinese consulate. "The main victims of all this will be Chinese people," Wilson said. "The Chinese Communist party is not Chinese people." He said the networks avoid using guns on the streets and stay out of small-boat Channel crossings to avoid police attention. "They're dealing with violence, they are dealing with drugs, they are dealing in organised immigration crime, but they're doing it in such a way that they know will avoid police attention," Wilson said. "So that would infer a decision made at high level. The danger here is the infrastructure to bring in masses and masses of cannabis is absolutely there and being utilised. What if tomorrow the Chinese government or Chinese organised crime group said it's going to be fentanyl?"