A compliance officer at a London brokerage said he was ordered by bosses to obtain a visa for an employee who turned out to be a Chinese spy, according to a series of allegations from an employment ruling.
The secret agent, who has since been deported, was sponsored by the now-closed foreign exchange brokerage Goldenway Global Investments, the ex-compliance officer said, according to a tribunal ruling. Goldenway, which is controlled by a Hong Kong-based company, faced multiple restrictions by the Financial Conduct Authority before it closed last year and changed its name.
The allegations were detailed in a successful whistleblower suit brought by Bharat Bhagani who said he was fired for blocking the appointment of two directors. Bhagani says he made several complaints to the FCA also detailing his money laundering suspicions over trading profits.
“I was the buffer for unregulated activity,” Bhagani said, according to the ruling, which was published last month. He said he was interviewed by UK authorities over the Chinese spying incident, saying that one of the firm’s directors “requisitioned the visa for the Chinese agent.”
The previously unreported deportation adds to a series of tit-for-tat espionage cases involving the UK and China. This month Beijing said it detained the head of an overseas consulting firm for allegedly spying on the Asian nation for the British government. That followed the arrest of two men in Britain last year in connection with alleged spying for...
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