WASHINGTON — A Singaporean pleaded guilty Friday (July 24) to using his political consultancy in the United States as a front to collect information for Chinese intelligence, the US Justice Department announced.

Jun Wei Yeo, also known as Dickson Yeo, entered his plea in federal court in Washington to one charge of operating illegally as a foreign agent.

In the plea, Yeo admitted to working between 2015 and 2019 for Chinese intelligence "to spot and assess Americans with access to valuable non-public information, including US military and government employees with high-level security clearances."

It said Yeo paid some of those individuals to write reports that were ostensibly for his clients in Asia, but sent instead to the Chinese government.

Yeo, 39, was a doctoral degree candidate at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. 

He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail, and will be sentenced on Oct 9.

The guilty plea was announced days after the US ordered China to close its consulate in Houston, labelling it a hub of spying and operations to steal US technology and intellectual property.

The US has also arrested four Chinese academics in recent weeks, charging them with lying on visa applications about their ties to the People's Liberation Army.

In a "statement of facts" submitted to the court and signed by Yeo, he admitted he was fully aware he was working for Chinese intelligence, meeting agents dozens of times and being given special treatment when he travelled to China.

The plea announcement came five weeks after an indictment of Yeo was unsealed, cryptically accusing him of acting illegally as an agent of an unspecified foreign government.

He had been in custody after being arrested following a flight to the US in November 2019.

Yeo was recruited by Chinese intelligence while working as an academic at NUS.

He had researched and wrote about China's "Belt and Road" initiative to expand its global commercial networks.

According to his LinkedIn page, he worked as a political risk analyst focused on China and Asean countries, saying he was "bridging North America with Beijing, Tokyo and Southeast Asia".

In the US, the court filing said, Yeo was directed by Chinese intelligence to open up a fake consultancy and offer jobs.

He received more than 400 resumes, 90 percent of which were from US military or government personnel with security clearances.

Yeo gave his Chinese handlers the resumes that he thought they would find interesting, according to the court documents.

He said he had recruited a number of people to work with him, targetting those who admitted to financial difficulties.

They included a civilian working on the Air Force's F-35B stealth fighter-bomber project, a Pentagon army officer with Afghanistan experience, and a State Department official, all of whom were paid as much as US$2,000 for writing reports for Yeo.

Yeo was "using career networking sites and a false consulting firm to lure Americans who might be of interest to the Chinese government," said Assistant Attorney General John Demers in a statement.

"This is yet another example of the Chinese government's exploitation of the openness of American society," he said.

According to The Washington Post, court filings showed that four contacts approached him after he gave a presentation in Beijing in 2015 on the political situation in Southeast Asia. 

Yeo initially began targetting other Asian countries, before focusing on the US under orders from several contacts in Chinese intelligence services, the court filings said.

Citing Yeo's offence statement, The Washington Post also reported that Yeo travelled frequently to China to meet with operatives and he was told by one of them that authorities wanted to conceal his identity after he complained that he was regularly pulled out of the customs line and taken to a separate office for admission.

Yeo returned to the US in November, planning to ask the Army officer to provide classified information and to reveal he was working for the Chinese government, the plea statement said. Instead, he was stopped on arrival by law enforcement, questioned and eventually arrested.

When asked whether it was involved in the investigation into Yeo and his eventual arrest, Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said: "MHA will not be commenting on this case." AGENCIES