The inner workings of China’s notorious secret police unit and how it hunts down dissidents living overseas – including in Australia – have been exposed by a former spy in a Four Corners investigation, raising tough questions about Australia’s national security.
It is the first time anyone from the secret police – one of the most feared and powerful arms of China’s intelligence apparatus – has ever spoken publicly.
The investigation also found the existence of an espionage operation on Australian soil only last year and the secret return of an Australian resident to China in 2019.
Spy speaks out
The spy — who goes by the name Eric — worked as an undercover agent for a unit within China’s federal police and security agency, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) between 2008 and early 2023.
Eric worked as a spy for China’s 1st Bureau for 15 years up until last year.(Four Corners: Keana Naughton)
The unit is called the Political Security Protection Bureau, or the 1st Bureau. It is one of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) key tools of repression, operating across the globe to surveil, kidnap and silence critics of the party, particularly President Xi Jinping.
“It is the darkest department in the Chinese