VIDEO: Ruthless Pursuit

"RUTHLESS PURSUIT"

13 May, 2024

Four Corners

SECRET POLICE HANDLER: You listen to my following request carefully.

A Chinese spy handler messages his undercover operative.

SECRET POLICE HANDLER: Think of a way to lure him to Cambodia or Laos

Both handler and agent are part of China's powerful secret police force. A vast global network running covert operations on foreign soil, including right here in Australia.

EDWIN YIN: Sometimes while sleeping, there'd be footsteps outside. I don't feel safe in Australia.

Now for the first time, a former Chinese secret police agent reveals his identity.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: I had to work for the secret police, I was forced to work for them.

He exposes the undercover operations he was ordered to carry out. And the threat to Australia's national security.

LAURA HARTH, SAFEGUARD DEFENDERS: These are illegal operations undeclared to the Australian government, to the Australian authorities

He reveals the tactics used to hunt down and silence those China deemed enemies of the state

REBEL PEPPER, CARTOONIST: You have proof?

DAN STANTON, FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER, CANADIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE: You have a foreign state, obviously following this young fellow and then he dies. This is very concerning

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Are you now a target?

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: It's possible that some agents on the ground may kidnap me.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: It's just before dawn on a bitter winter morning. A spy with China's notorious secret police has made the dangerous decision to flee his country.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: The day I left, I set out very early. The sun still hadn't risen. It was very cold. Before going through customs, I was worried an unexpected incident might happen, and if it did, how I should handle it.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Using a student visa, he escapes to Thailand, before boarding a flight to his final destination — Australia.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER He heads to the headquarters of Australia's domestic spy agency, ASIO. He's ready to hand over secrets he's carefully guarded for more than a decade.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: I thought my experience might give them some useful information.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER He tells ASIO officers about his career as an undercover agent. They copy his files and tell him not to make any further contact with ASIO for his own safety. In August last year, the ABC's investigations unit received an encrypted email. We didn't know it at the time but it was from this very same former spy.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: "Dear ABC: How interested are you in certain overseas activities of the Chinese government? I have worked for the Chinese government for a long time. ASIO knows me.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: And that's where our story begins. I've been reporting on China and the Chinese government's activities overseas for over a decade. But what he gave me was like nothing I'd ever seen.

Hundreds of secret documents, text messages, photos, voice messages, bank records – a trove of information he'd gathered working for the most powerful arm of the Chinese intelligence apparatus. The spy goes by the name Eric. He's now coming out of the shadows at great personal risk.

This is the first time anyone from China's secret police has gone public. He wants to expose China's global intelligence network, and their clandestine operations right here in Australia.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Why are you doing this interview?

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: I believe the public has the right to know the secret world. There is something I still believe, freedom and justice. So these things give me courage to make some different choices. I worked for the Chinese political security department for 15 years. Today it is still the darkest department in the Chinese government.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Eric worked for the notorious first bureau of China's Ministry of Public Security. This is China's secret police force.

HOLDEN TRIPLETT, FBI, Beijing office head (2014-2017): The MPS portrays itself, as really a police service, but in my mind they're anything but that. They are, in fact, actually a security service with a political mission.

Their job is to protect the Party's status, the Communist Party of China. And when I say status, I mean control. The Party has to remain in control.

PETER MATTIS, CHINA ANALYST, JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION: It has also had a role in trying to silence dissidents as well as to map the dissident networks. How do you intimidate, how do you silence and how do you ensure that these people are not effective or active?

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: They're a bit like the KGB, the Stasi and the Gestapo. They have the power of investigation, the power to collect intelligence. But they also have the power to prosecute people.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Do you believe there are secret police here in Australia?

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: There are definitely Chinese secret agents in Australia. They certainly have established a support system in Australia. We also know some Chinese groups and organisations actually work for the Chinese Government. This is an open secret.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Eric's secret life began as a 22-year-old college student. An idealist, he says he joined a US-based pro-democracy organization called the China Social Democratic Party, or CSDP.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: Their purpose was to establish a democratic society, to end the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CPP). In the eyes of the Party, they're a hostile organisation based overseas.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: As the country around him prepared for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, there was a knock at Eric's door.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: I opened the door and there were four people, three men and one woman. You could tell they were police from the way they carried themselves. They told me, "get dressed and follow us, you know what you've done."

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Eric says he was taken to a small room at the local police station.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: I was a bit scared at the time as I'd never experienced anything like this.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: The police interrogated Eric about his involvement with the pro-democracy group.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: They also threatened me. The head of the team said, "we could send you to jail".

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: They questioned him over several days. And then finally he was offered a chance at redemption.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: I had to work for the secret police, I was forced to work for them.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: That redemption meant betraying everything he believed in and becoming part of the murky world of Chinese intelligence. One of the most extraordinary things Eric told Four Corners was about a Chinese intelligence operation, on Australian soil.

SECRET POLICE HANDLER: I'll send you something to take a look at. Get close to this person.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: This is an actual recording of Eric's secret police handler, directing him to hunt down a target in Australia.

SECRET POLICE HANDLER (TEXT ON SCREEN): Yin Ke, born in 1982, from Shengzhou, Zhejiang… He fled to Thailand, Singapore and other places, and is now in Australia.

SECRET POLICE HANDLER: Use Twitter or other channels to get closer to him.

SECRET POLICE HANDLER: Lure him to South-East Asia.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: The secret police handler called me. They said that if I couldn't find a way to lure (him) to South-East Asia, they'd consider sending someone to Australia to approach him.

EDWIN YIN: I don't dare to stay in one place. I borrowed a friend's campervan. I drive and stop in towns within an hour and a half of Melbourne, like a guerilla.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: This is the man who Eric was tasked with hunting down. Edwin Yin is on the run – alone, paranoid, and unable to live a normal life. He says he's been under constant surveillance by the Chinese state for the past six years.

EDWIN YIN: In front of our home, there were different cars, different Chinese faces. They appeared where we went. When I went out I was followed. Sometimes while sleeping, there'd be footsteps outside. I'd grab a knife and rush outside, but they'd be gone.

EDWIN YIN VIDEO UPSOT: Does Xi Jinping have any illegitimate sons? I wrote a book about this, it's called "Xi Jinping Four Princes".

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Edwin is being targeted because he crossed a red line. In his online posts and videos, he has been deeply critical of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and has ridiculed Xi's daughter.

EDWIN YIN: You can humiliate the Chinese Communist Party, but you can't humiliate Xi Jinping. Or even, you can go so far as to humiliate Xi Jinping, but not his daughter.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: He fled China and arrived in Australia in 2018.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: When dealing with those who oppose the CCP, to some extent, they can say these opponents aren't protected by laws. They can do whatever they want to them.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: In 2021, Edwin was targeted in a brutal, physical attack. He suspects they were Chinese agents.

EDWIN YIN: There were two men who cornered me at that entrance. The taller man came up to me and without reason, pow, pow, pow three times. I held off two punches with my elbows. But the third one landed on my nose.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Edwin reported the assault to local police.

EDWIN YIN: So when the police took a photo of me afterwards, I had a crooked nose and some bruises on my chest.

EDWIN YIN: The Victorian Police didn't say much to me. They only said they would check the surveillance camera. Then nothing happened, until the AFP contacted me.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Four Corners can reveal that Edwin Yin remains a target of the Chinese Communist Party. Last year, the Australian Federal Police executed a sensitive search warrant in Sydney. The secret raid was connected to a Chinese espionage operation in Australia. Edwin's name was among the victims of the operation listed on the search warrant. Soon after, he was called in for a meeting with the AFP.

EDWIN YIN: They told me, in an action, they'd disrupted an intelligence agency in Australia.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: They acquired some information and materials that indicated the CCP was looking for me in Australia through this intelligence agency .

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: That espionage investigation is ongoing. The AFP declined to comment about Edwin Yin's case.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: China claims Edwin Yin is a criminal. And he is a controversial character. In China, he's been charged with fraud. And an Australian court ordered him to repay $700,000 over an alleged foreign exchange scam. Four Corners spoke to the victim who says Edwin did commit the crime, and that he's defrauded others. Edwin says he's been framed by the Chinese government. Soon after he arrived in Australia, the attempts to repatriate him began. And it wasn't just Eric tracking him down. In this phone call, Edwin's then girlfriend in China told him she was being pressured to assist the Chinese foreign intelligence service.

EDWIN YIN: Why are people from the Ministry of State Security meeting with you?

WOMAN: He asked me to lure you here.

EDWIN YIN: Inside China's borders?

WOMAN: Any city will do.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: The targeting of Edwin escalated. In March 2020, his new partner, Michelle, received a call from her parents back in China. Michelle is an Australian citizen. She was told her father was gravely ill.

MICHELLE: My mum just suddenly call me, said your dad got heart attack, so I thought oh, I have to go back. When I walk into my home, I just see my dad sitting on the sofa. Ok then I know my dad wasn't in hospital. My parents, they said they've been interrogation with the Beijing national security agent in the past about a month.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: The day after she arrived back in China, Michelle says she was forced to meet with intelligence officers.

MICHELLE: They start to ask me some questions about Edwin. So, where he lives, what did he do, and like also the things like his financial information, what kind of the people he met, yeah. They said if you can cooperate with us we probably can give you some benefit.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: At this time, Michelle was pregnant with Edwin's child. She says the officers, and her terrified family, started pressuring her to abort her baby.

MICHELLE: They ask me, when you are due? In some states you still can do the abortion.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Michelle believes the officers were worried a baby would give Edwin a pathway to Australian citizenship.

MICHELLE: Every day wake up, I touched on my tummy, I can feel his move, can feel his heart. I never thought one day in my life someone ask me to abortion to get rid of this baby, yeah.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Michelle managed to return to Australia, but even here the intelligence officers continued to pressure her. Michelle contacted the Department of Home Affairs, detailing the harassment and asking for protection She received no response. The Department of Home Affairs declined to answer specific questions. Despite the pressure, Edwin Yin continues his political activism.

EDWIN YIN: I was once the pride of the family, but now I'm a black sheep, one to be despised. The Chinese Communist Party knows you care most about your reputation, therefore they will try and ruin it. They know you care about friendship, so they ask your friends to betray you. They know you care about your parents the most, so they would ask your parents…

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Eric and Edwin's story is part of something much bigger. China's vast spying apparatus operates on a global scale. Civilian intelligence gathering comes under two main bodies — the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security.

HOLDEN TRIPLETT, FBI, Beijing office head (2014-2017): The Ministry of Public Security, which most people think about as sort of the domestic security service, and that's largely correct. But they have an intelligence mission as well. Then we have the Ministry of State Security where I think most people think of that as their civilian intelligence service.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Holden Triplett led the FBI's office in Beijing. As part of that job he regularly met with the Ministry of Public Security, or MPS. Under Xi Jinping's rule, this control has become much tighter. Now, almost no dissent is tolerated, and Xi has strengthened his grip on the Chinese population overseas.

HOLDEN TRIPLETT, FBI, Beijing office head (2014-2017): Now they're heavily engaged in the world. They need resources from all sorts of places. And so making sure that they have control over these Chinese populations wherever they are in the world, is essential for them to continue to maintain power. So anyone within the Chinese population internally or in the diaspora or perhaps even outside of it that could threaten the Party's control, that's what they would be investigating, opposing and disrupting if necessary.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: And that's why Eric was so useful. As a dissident himself, he could infiltrate the broader pro-democracy movement.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: The first task working for the secret police was to maintain my contact with the Social Democratic Party, and to collect internal information.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: In 2016, Eric was invited to a gathering of activists in Dharamshala, home of the Tibetan government in exile. There he met with the Dalai Lama. He filed a report back to his police handler detailing the exiled government's future China policy. It was well-received. He was rewarded with a new mission to Cambodia.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: For agents like me with an anti-Chinese Communist Party background, being sent overseas reflects trust from the system.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: On October 12, Eric flew from China to Phnom Penh. There he was provided with an apartment, and a cover story.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: At that time, a very big corporation was my cover company in Cambodia. The secret police put me into their subsidiary to be their planning director.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: He began working at Prince Real Estate, part of the Prince Holding Group, a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate with close ties to the country's leadership.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: The company had a very close relationship with the Chinese secret police force. Their boss, of course knew who I was, why I would be here, and what my tasks were.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: In Cambodia, Eric's main target was a man called Wang Liming, also known as Rebel Pepper.

UPSOT NEWS STORY: Rebel Pepper, he was an everyday Chinese marketing guru until he became an enemy of the state by becoming a journalist and cartoonist

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Not just any cartoonist – Rebel Pepper's drawings took aim at China's political elite, including President Xi Jinping. From China's human rights record to its domestic and international affairs, Rebel Pepper's images provide a sharp critique of his homeland.

His trenchant cartoons drew the wrath of the Chinese Communist Party and in 2014 he was forced to leave his home.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Eric was tasked with luring him to Cambodia from Japan where he was living.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: The secret police wanted to lure him in South-East Asia, where they could take him back to China, to prosecute and send him to trial.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Under the guise of a Prince Group employee, Eric reached out to Rebel Pepper.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: I said our company would like to commission him, we would like him to draw some cartoons for us. During this period, we would send him money as his remuneration.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Every message Eric sent was first approved by his police handler.

November 23, 2016 (TEXT ON SCREEN)- ERIC: I plan to leave a message…such as "Hi Pepper…I have seen a lot of your work, and I'm very impressed.

SECRET POLICE HANDLER: OK.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: In this voice message, Eric's handler tells him to exploit Rebel Pepper's need for money.

SECRET POLICE HANDLER: You can ask him about his financial situation. If he says his financial situation is bad, you can immediately send him 500 US dollars.

Date: November 28, 2016- ERIC: He replied.

SECRET POLICE HANDLER: OK, wait for my update.

ERIC: Well. The fish seems to be biting the bait.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Rebel Pepper, now lives on the outskirts of Washington D.C.

REBEL PEPPER, CARTOONIST: Let me show you some of my drawings.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: What's the meaning behind this picture?

REBEL PEPPER, CARTOONIST: This drawing is about China's education. They teach children to worship police, army and the like. It reflects China's education system where children are taught to worship authoritarian figures.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Do you think you've ever been a target of China's secret police?

REBEL PEPPER, CARTOONIST: There was a person who contacted me online, saying he was my fan. He said he was working for a real estate company in Cambodia and wanted me to help him design a logo for the company. I did help him design it, and he paid me for my work.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: He doesn't know it, but the fan was Eric. Rebel Pepper's designs were displayed at events held by Prince Real Estate. The company's senior managers even posed for a photo in front of one of them. The Prince Group told Four Corners they have no affiliations with the Chinese government.

REBEL PEPPER, CARTOONIST: Then he told me that their company is currently recruiting globally, including a creative director position. He asked me if I'm interested. The money was quite good, and then he told me that I need to go to Cambodia for the job interview. I was quite tempted to go, but my wife strongly opposed it, saying that it might be a trap.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: We have been investigating this matter, and I can confirm that it was indeed a trap set up by the Chinese police.

REBEL PEPPER: Really? You have proof?

ECHO HUI, REPORTER:: Do you recognise these email exchange between you and a person named Xiao Yang?

REBEL PEPPER: Eh, you have screengrabs of the email. Yes, yes, that's the person.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER:: These are some messages between the spy tasked with arresting you and his secret police handler.

REBEL PEPPER: I am totally shocked. There really was a project like that.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Do you feel scared?

REBEL PEPPER, CARTOONIST: Of course. It freaks me out. If they spent that much effort to arrest me, they would severely penalise me. I have always had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I felt I wasn't that important anymore. They only needed to censor my cartoons. What intelligence was there to collect on me? I never expected they had been actively tracking me. This really surprised me.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Eric's secret police work continued. In 2018, Eric was sent on another overseas mission, this time to Bangkok where he was embedded in a hotel group as a business planning manager. One of his main targets was this man, a dissident and artist called Hua Yong. Hua Yong had long been an outspoken critic of the Communist Party. In 2012 he staged a protest commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre, punching himself in the face. In 2017 he made international headlines by documenting Beijing's mass evictions of migrant workers. After being repeatedly detained and harassed by police, Hua fled China to Thailand. But, even there, he wasn't safe.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: In the eyes of Chinese secret police officials, Thailand is seen as China's backyard.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Eric was directed to establish contact with Hua Yong, in a voice message from his police handler

SECRET POLICE HANDLER: You listen to my following request carefully. This Hua Yong, the superiors now find him very annoying and want to deal with him. You think of a way to lure him to Cambodia or Laos.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: They discussed tactics to flush Hua out. Eric proposed creating a fake anti-CCP online persona to get close to him.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: I was making videos and planned on making some revolutionary videos. I told the secret police that since Hua Yong shared the same revolutionary thoughts, the videos I would make could be used to approach him.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: His police handler was willing to help.

SECRET POLICE HANDLER: Write an outline of how we can help you, e.g show us different types of guns and shooting effects, etc.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Once it's allowed to be implemented, I will arrange them for you. Eric recorded videos pretending to be the leader of an anti-CCP militia.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: Hello everyone…

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: This is Eric in the Thai jungle, posing as their spokesperson.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: So straight to the point, today we'll talk about how, as an individual, to prepare for armed revolution and armed struggle.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: The plan worked. Hua Yong was impressed.

HUA YONG (TEXT ON SCREEN): I just watched the video for three minutes.

HUA YONG: I can feel my blood boiling.

HUA YONG: Thumbs up (emoji)

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Increasingly afraid for his safety, in 2021 Hua fled again, this time to Canada, on a protection visa. But Eric's pursuit didn't end. He maintained close contact with Hua and was invited to join his core group of activists. He sent detailed reports of Hua's movements back to his handler.

DAN STANTON, FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER, CANADIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE: Is that the residence of the dissident?

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Yeah.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: I show the report to Dan Stanton. He was an intelligence officer with the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service for 32 years. He also ran their China desk for four years.

DAN STANTON, FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER, CANADIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE: The map is what?

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: His daily activity, he walked from home to a friend's home, the distance…

DAN STANTON, FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER, CANADIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE: So pattern of life, what his routines are, what he likes to do. This is impressive. Someone in the group was befriending the dissident and then would be reporting back on his activities, his personalities, who he has contacts with so from the Chinese perspective, they're identifying and neutralising a threat to the state, for Canada, we've got a sovereignty issue here.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: I'm on my way to the place that Hua Yong called home after leaving Thailand, to a small town called Gibsons on the picturesque west coast. It's a ferry ride from Vancouver, and an ocean away from China. I speak with people around town who've met Hua Yong.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: What do you remember about him, you said he came to the store, what he said, what he asked for? They tell me he spent his days in Gibsons working on his art, kayaking, fishing and catching crabs.

FRIEND: Hua Yong was a very passionate person. He mainly spent his time drawing, he loved the ocean, and creative work. He especially loved Gibsons. When the accident happened, he set out from this beach.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Four months after he arrived in Gibsons, Hua Yong died. He drowned in these waters on a cold autumn night. He'd gone out in his kayak. His body was found floating in the water the next morning.

FRIEND: Losing him, losing such a good friend, was really painful. I'll miss him forever.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: This friend doesn't want to be identified for fear of retribution from the Chinese government

FRIEND: He loved the sea so much and longed for the freedom and light, but then an accident like this happened.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: After years of tracking him, Eric has doubts about the cause of Hua's death.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: My first reaction was that maybe he'd been killed. But in fact, I couldn't tell whether his death was just an accident or a murder, because I wasn't part of it. I also knew little about it. All I could say is that Mr Hua had been a long-term target of the secret police.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: So you were effectively helping the secret police track down people who are innocent of any crime. Do you feel any guilt for your involvement?

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: I am aware of the outcome one might face in China if you refuse to work for the secret police.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Knowing that Hua Yong was a target for China's secret police, do you think it warrant further investigation into his death?

DAN STANTON, FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER, CANADIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE: I think it clearly does because, not to suggest that's exactly what happened, not to suggest that the state may have had a hand in his death, but I just think this is very compelling when you have a foreign state, obviously following this young fellow and reporting on him, and then he dies. This is very concerning in my opinion.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: China's intelligence networks have been more active in Australia than previously thought.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: President Xi Jinping has used his anti-corruption campaigns – Fox Hunt and Sky Net – to return more than 12,000 so-called fugitives to China since 2014. They've also been used as cover to silence and kidnap dissidents. Many were forced to return in covert operations, without the knowledge or permission of local authorities. Laura Harth has investigated the Australian cases.

LAURA HARTH, SAFEGUARD DEFENDERS: Australia is one of those countries where between 2014 and 2023, Chinese sources state that there were at least 16 successful individual extrajudicial returns. Four of those were in 2023.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Those 16 people were accused of committing economic crimes.

LAURA HARTH, SAFEGUARD DEFENDERS: We don't want to imply that all these people are innocent of the crimes that have been alleged. But we do see instances that clearly pointed to the fact that people were sought because they might be critical of the current leadership.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: These operations have included Chinese police secretly coming to Australia to extract people. In 2014, when this was made public, it caused a major diplomatic incident. In 2019, officers came again — this time with permission from Australian authorities. But we can reveal they didn't follow the agreed protocol, and took their target back to China.

LAURA HARTH, SAFEGUARD DEFENDERS: They used the local Chinese consulate general and embassy to help them. We believe this was an operation that was not declared to the Australian authorities. For the PRC to launch these illegal operations undeclared to the Australian government, to the Australian authorities going after people on Australian soil is clearly in violation, brazen violation of the sovereignty of Australia.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: The AFP wouldn't comment on these cases. These repatriations are part of a broader strategy to build networks overseas.

HOLDEN TRIPLETT, FBI, Beijing office head (2014-2017): The MPS comes, says "we're police, we're doing anti-corruption, a bunch of criminals in your country, let us clean them up, let us take 'em". That sounds like a really great idea. And by allowing that to happen, we allow them to get a foothold in the United States, Australia and other places. And they've built from that foothold, and now they have a much stronger apparatus that can reach out and touch more and more people.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Former spy Eric says Australia isn't prepared:

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: The secret police system is getting busier and busier. No doubt their power is expanding. Their staffing, their finances — all have perhaps been enhanced. So their overseas operations have become relatively more active.

ECHO HUI, RPEORTER: Has Western governments dropped the ball on this?

DAN STANTON, FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER, CANADIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE: I'd say western governments have dropped the ball on MPS and on the bigger picture of transnational repression. We haven't listened to our diaspora community. So it's easy to see how a foreign state's intelligence apparatus could exploit that. A little bit of indifference on the government side and fear from the community side in speaking out. Completely dropped the ball.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: This is a meeting that's been months in the making. Eric, the former undercover agent, is now face to face with one of the men he was tasked with hunting down.

REBEL PEPPER, CARTOONIST: If I'd agreed in the first instance, and my wife had not stopped me, I would have arrived in Cambodia, what would have happened next?

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: That would've been very dangerous for you. Once you'd entered Cambodia, once they'd detained you there, it would have been difficult for you to find a way out.

REBEL PEPPER, CARTOONIST: I'm shocked.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: They're actually still watching you all the time, so be careful. As for me, after this report comes out, I might become one of the primary targets for arrest. Let's both stay safe.

REBEL PEPPER, CARTOONIST: I will.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Eric and one of his other former targets, Edwin, now live in the same city, breathe the same air, and share the same fears.

EDWIN YIN: I don't feel safe in Australia. I'm surprised the CCP has so much influence in Australia. I'm surprised by the amount of manpower, money and resources that they've spent on me without considering the costs.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Eric — no longer a spy – is now also a target of his former masters.

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: They may deny this story. mobilise some agents on the ground or send people to Australia to take measures against me, possibly getting physical. It's even possible that some agents on the ground may kidnap me. When they deal with a target like me, they may be more patient, smart, and wait for an appropriate time to act.

ECHO HUI, REPORTER: Do you believe you can have a safe life here in Australia?

ERIC, FORMER SECRET POLICE AGENT: I'm definitely safer in Australia than in China or in South East Asia. But my safety eventually is determined by the Australian government. But, to some extent, for all those who oppose the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping, the day that we can feel truly safe is the day the CCP falls, after China becomes more free and democratic. Only then can we feel free and safe.