The Supreme People’s Procuratorate of China released four typical cases of punishing crimes against national security in accordance with the law on April 16, in which a photographer was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the crime of spying and illegally providing state secrets for overseas by providing 384 photos of warships involving military ports and receiving remuneration of more than RMB 40,000.
“The Paper” reported that in 2019, the defendant Huang XX befriended an overseas person, “Sister Qi”, through WeChat, and under the instruction of “Sister Qi”, between July 2019 and May 2020, he took advantage of taking wedding photos on a beach near a military port, and used professional photographic equipment, cell phones and other telephoto shots of the warships moored around the military port.
In order to avoid exposing himself, Huang also entrusted others to take panoramic shots of the bay near the military port by deception and monetary inducement. Huang shot a total of more than 90 times, which involved 384 photos of warships at the military port.
After completing the shooting, Huang sent the photos to the overseas person “Sister Qi” through the network by shared disk, group sharing, etc., and received a total of more than 40,000 yuan in compensation. After identification, the photos involved 3 top-secret secrets and 2 classified secrets.
Eventually, Huang was sentenced to 14 years in prison, deprived of political rights for 5 years, and confiscated personal property of 40,000 yuan for committing the crime of spying and illegally providing state secrets to overseas people.
Similarly, state security organs in Hainan Province had announced two cases of Taiwan espionage in 2018, in which Chinese working men Zhou and Huang were sentenced to prison in Sanya for collecting intelligence for Taiwan’s spy intelligence agencies, and they were eventually sentenced to 11 years and 7 years in prison respectively by the court after they were hooked up with Taiwan’s spy intelligence agencies while looking for part-time jobs online.