The investigation was launched in October 2019 by the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement team, whose mandate is to counter foreign interference, including activities carried out on behalf of foreign actors that “constitute a risk to Canada’s economy and institutions.”
New court filings show that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had warned the CSA on multiple occasions about Zheng, and had even refused to give a presentation to the CSA knowing that Zheng would be present, CBC reported on March 13.
An affidavit used to obtain search warrants on Zheng’s phone and emails shows that CSIS sent three warnings to the space agency regarding his “reliability status,” which refers to a personnel security status within the federal government that is required before an employee can gain access to certain protected information, assets, or work sites.
The first warning from CSIS came in 2015, but the agency didn’t provide details about its concerns. The same year, CSIS also asked the agency if Zheng would have had access to information related to certain CSA intellectual property.
The court files say CSIS routinely reports on anomalies or irregularities without passing on specific details.
“The purpose of this procedure is to trigger an internal or police investigation without revealing or compromising their intelligence gathering techniques,” the affidavit says.
The federal intelligence agency followed with two more warnings in the spring of 2016.
In the following year, CSA renewed Zheng’s security clearance for two years rather than the usual 10 years as part of an effort to monitor Zheng’s compliance with its internal policies, the court documents say.
“When concerns about this individual’s private activities outside of their employment arose, the CSA took actions, including an internal inquiry and restricting access to information,” CSA spokesperson Andrea Matte told CBC, adding the agency would not comment further on the matter while the case is before the court.
In September 2017, CSIS refused to give a presentation at the CSA when it learned that Zheng would be attending. The incident eventually led to an internal investigation of the engineer in 2018, CBC reported.
According to the court documents, while Zheng was still working at the agency, CSA technicians had noticed the presence of unauthorized software from a foreign company. At least one secure file transfer service and a messaging application were identified on the computer, which violated CSA’s internal policy, the documents say.
In September 2019, the CSA reported its suspicion to the RCMP that Zheng had transmitted protected information to a third party. Zheng resigned in December that year after 26 years with the agency.
None of the allegations against Zheng have been proven in court. He is scheduled to return to court this week.
