Philippine security officials declared on Monday that they have detained a Chinese software engineer on suspicion of spying on Filipino military and police camps.
The detention followed by the maritime conflicts between the Philippines and China over contested reefs and waters in the strategic South China Sea has intensified in recent months.
China claimed most of the strategic waterway despite an international ruling that its affirmation has no legal basis.
The Chinese software engineer, Deng Yuanqing, and his two Filipino drivers were detained last week as part of counter-espionage operations that were initiated last month, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) chief Jaime Santiago informed in a news conference.
He claimed that Deng was associated with a Chinese university controlled by the People’s Liberation Army and was a member of a team sent to spy in the Philippines. The Chinese embassy in Manila did not respond yet to the allegations.
The NBI’s cybercrime chief, Jeremy Lotoc, stated that Deng often visits the “critical infrastructure, particularly military camps, local government offices, power plants, police camps, stations, and even shopping malls.”
He further said, “They were basically gathering data, and they have this remote application that transmits outside the country in real time data that they collected from the country.”
He also said it was “alarming” because the details being transmitted could include geographical coordinates and topography.
Philippine military chief General Romeo Brawner claimed that “information could be used for military targeting purposes.”.
Lotoc said Deng had been living in the Philippines for five years and was a member of a group that also included hardware engineers and a financier who were still “at large.”
The group received funding of 1.5 million pesos (about $26,000) a week through shell companies.
Brawner said it was the second case of a suspected Chinese spy since last year and that forensic analysis of equipment seized in the earlier arrest also disclosed pictures of military and police camps in Manila.
Philippine Police also said this week they have found a suspected Chinese submarine drone in waters off the central Philippines. Brawner said authorities were probing whether all three cases were connected.
