Germany Arrests Chinese National Accused of Passing Airport Details to Alleged CCP Spy

A woman walks past the Chinese Embassy in Berlin on Dec. 11, 2017. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

German federal prosecutors announced on Oct. 1 the arrest of a woman suspected of providing airport details to an alleged spy for the Chinese Communist Party’s intelligence operations.

Identified only as Yaqi X, she was arrested in Leipzig, Germany, on Sept. 30, and a judge ordered her detained pending a possible indictment. Her apartment and workplace were searched.

According to prosecutors, Yaqi X works for a company that provides logistical services to hubs, including the Leipzig/Halle Airport, which handles both passengers and freight. She is suspected of working for a Chinese intelligence service, providing information on flights and freight. Prosecutors said Yaqi X disclosed information relating to the transportation of military equipment and people connected to a German defense company.

She is suspected of passing the information between August 2023 and mid-February of this year to Jian Guo, a German national who worked as a top aide to a German lawmaker.

Guo was arrested in April on charges of working for a Chinese intelligence service, passing on information about negotiations and decisions in the European Parliament, and spying on Chinese dissidents in Germany.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said at the time that the spying allegations were “extremely serious.”

“If it is confirmed that there was spying for Chinese intelligence from inside the European Parliament, then that is an attack from inside on European democracy,” Faeser said in a statement.

Guo’s arrest came on the heels of the arrest of three German citizens accused of spying for the CCP since 2022 and exporting sensitive technologies that would have been useful to the Chinese military.

Last year, Germany issued a policy statement on China focused on reducing economic dependence on the world’s second-largest economy, but with hopes of maintaining trade relations and viewing China as a partner.

China has been Germany’s largest trading partner for years, but CCP-backed cyberattacks on Germany and the regime’s support for Russia’s war efforts, including helping Russia evade international sanctions, have created tensions.

On July 31, the German Ministry of the Interior announced that CCP-backed hackers were responsible for a “severe“ attack on a federal agency in 2021 and that state-sponsored hackers have intensified cyberattacks in recent years. German intelligence services also accused the Chinese regime of stealing intellectual property, and shared their belief that the regime had plans to further invest ”enormous” resources into these illicit activities.

Germany plans to phase out Chinese Huawei and ZTE parts from its 5G networks by 2026 to shield the country’s critical infrastructure from the CCP.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.