FOLLOW US

On Friday, Jun Wei Yeo, also known as Dickson Yeo, entered a plea of guilty to one count of acting within the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign power. Mr. Yeo’s plea was entered via videoconference before the Honorable Tanya S. Chutkan in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

He is scheduled for sentencing on October 9 and faces up to 10 years in prison.

Yeo was not a “useful idiot”

Jun Wei Yeo was a Singaporean Ph.D. student at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy  when he was first approached by Chinese intelligence officers in 2015. Although the Chinese officers pretended to be with a Chinese “think tank,” Yeo recognized they were affiliated with the Chinese government.

Bilahari Kausikan, the former permanent secretary at Singapore's foreign ministry, said he had "no doubt that Dickson knew he was working for the Chinese intelligence services." He was not, Kausikan claimed, "an unwitting useful idiot."

In the Statement of Offense, 39-year-old Yeo admitted he used social networking sites, most notably LinkedIn to target Americans with access to valuable non-public information, including U.S. military and government employees with high-level security clearances. 

For 5 years, as an agent for the Chinese government, Yeo trawled for “susceptible individuals who were vulnerable to recruitment and tried to avoid detection by U.S. authorities.”  

After Yeo identified American targets, he solicited them for non-public information and paid them to write reports. Yeo told his American targets the reports were for clients in Asia, without revealing that they were destined for the Chinese government.

LinkedIn a goldmine of information

Yeo made his crucial contacts using LinkedIn, the job and careers networking site used by more than 700 million people. The platform was described only as a "professional networking website" in the court documents, but its use was confirmed by the Washington Post.

In finding his contacts, Yeo, who was based in Washington D.C. in 2019, was aided by the LinkedIn algorithm. Each time Yeo saw a profile it would suggest a new slate of contacts with similar experience that might be of interest. 

LinkedIn is a goldmine for foreign intelligence agencies. In 2018, U.S. counter-intelligence chief William Evanina warned of "super aggressive" action by Beijing on the Microsoft-owned platform, which is one of few Western social media sites not blocked in China.

After success using various social media sites, Yeo created a fake consulting company that used the same name as a prominent U.S. consulting firm that conducts public and government relations. He then posted job advertisements under that company name.