MI5 Warns UK Lawmakers Of Chinese Spies Posing As Headhunters On LinkedIn

The UK's domestic security service warned British lawmakers of new Chinese-backed efforts to target them online, reigniting concerns about espionage by Beijing around Parliament. 

MI5 issued an alert on Tuesday identifying two online accounts claiming to represent headhunting groups that it said were run by Chinese intelligence agencies. The accounts were ostensibly recruiting for companies called BP-YR Executive Search and Internship Union. 

The security service told Members of Parliament that spies used such cover stories to approach British politicians and officials on networking sites such as LinkedIn, often offering jobs as freelance consultants.

Security Minister Dan Jarvis set out the government's response in the House of Commons on Tuesday. That will include hundreds of millions of pounds of funding for security programs, new security briefings for political parties and election candidates, plans to tighten rules on political donations, and plans to work with professional networking sites to make them a more hostile operating environment for spies.

The Chinese Embassy in London dismissed the British claims as a "pure fabrication and malicious slander." The embassy said in a statement that it had "lodged stern representations" with the UK for "undermining China-UK relations."

Such alerts by MI5 to lawmakers are rare, but not unprecedented. In 2022, the security service warned MPs about interference by Beijing, accusing a parliamentary aide of being linked to the Chinese Communist Party.

British officials said such approaches often seek non-public information about the UK, offering job interviews and commissioning their targets to write reports, often using cover companies to obfuscate their links to China's intelligence services, the alert said. MI5 said that MPs and staff should be wary of accepting expenses-paid travel to China and offers to pay for supposed consultancy services with cryptocurrency.

"The Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) seeks to collect sensitive information on the UK to gain strategic advantage," the MI5 alert said. "Following recent examples of attempts to target UK Parliament for intelligence gathering, this espionage alert seeks to highlight typical MSS tradecraft and methodology from a specific group of highly active officers."

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