An Australian businessman provided Chinese intelligence agents with security and defense advice falsely claimed to have come from former prime minister Kevin Rudd, a jury has heard.
Rudd is expected to testify at the foreign interference trial of businessman Alexander Sergo, which began on Thursday.
Csergo, 59, pleaded not guilty to one count of negligent foreign interference after passing on reports to two people he believed to be working for China’s Ministry of State Security.
The owner of IT consulting firm Conversis lives in Shanghai and works on data-sensitive telecom projects related to Chinese government strategy.
Jurors heard he communicated with two people known as “Ken” and “Evelyn” from when he contacted him on LinkedIn in November 2021, a month after he returned to Australia, until March 2023.
Crown prosecutor Jennifer Single SC said the Australian believed Ken and Evelyn worked for Chinese intelligence and was “developing” him as a potential source.
In exchange for cash, he provided reports on topics including lithium and iron ore, a change in German government, the AUKUS security agreement and the Quad diplomatic partnership.
Csergo compiled this information from open source material found online and included quotes from fake interviews he claimed to have conducted with several people, including Rudd, the court was told.
The prosecutor said the former prime minister and diplomat would testify that he did not speak to Sergo after the businessman approached him and asked about Australian defence, AUKUS and the Quad.
“[Csergo] The source material was created to lend credence to his reports and make him a more valuable asset,” Single said.
When the businessman finishes compiling each report, he does not send it by email.
Instead, he would hand out a printed version or a digital file on a USB stick at in-person restaurant or cafe meetings, the jury heard.
“Often those restaurants and cafes were completely empty apart from the accused, Ken and Evelyn,” Single said.
In early 2023, Ken gave Sergo a “shopping list” to research when he returned to Australia.
‘I read your ‘shopping list’. I know what you are looking for,” Sergo told Ken on WeChat before leaving.
During a search warrant at the 59-year-old’s Bondi premises in March 2023, Australian Federal Police seized a document that was read to a jury on Thursday.
In it, Ken asked for information on China-related issues in the Australian and US intelligence communities, defense and national security strategies on China, and China’s foreign policy.
He directed Csergo to find contacts in the Prime Minister’s Office, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and other law enforcement agencies.
AFP also seized his smartphone, laptop and other electronic devices, finding 3,200 WeChat messages between the 59-year-old man and his two alleged handlers.
Sergo told police he felt he had to work with Ken and Evelyn because he was under Chinese surveillance and could not leave the Asian country because of the COVID-19 lockdowns, the court was told.
His lawyer Ian Todd argued that his client had made a commercial decision to provide information for money.
“None of those reports disclosed secrets, the blueprint for military weapons or Australia’s military capabilities,” he told the jury.
Sergo’s only deception was lying and sending Ken and Evelyn material that others had written as his own, Todd said.
The IT consultant also did nothing with the “shopping list”, the jury was told.
The investigation is ongoing.
