A couple from Munich is suspected of establishing contacts at German universities on behalf of a Chinese intelligence service and luring German scientists to China under false pretences, German federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The two German citizens of Chinese origin were arrested in the Bavarian capital earlier in the day.
Prosecutors accuse the pair of building contacts with scientists at German universities and research institutes in order to obtain scientific information on cutting-edge technology with potential military applications.
According to the Office of the Federal Prosecutor in Karlsruhe, the targeted academics included professors specializing in aerospace engineering, computer science and artificial intelligence.
The suspects were arrested by officers from the Bavarian state criminal police office, which also searched their homes and workplaces in Munich.
At the same time, authorities carried out additional operations in the states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.
A spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office said the measures concerned 10 scientists who had allegedly been in contact with the suspects. The individuals were being treated as witnesses rather than suspects and the investigation currently involves eight academic institutions.
According to prosecutors, the couple at times posed as interpreters and at other times as employees of a car manufacturer when approaching scientists.
Some academics were allegedly lured to China under the false pretext of delivering paid lectures to civilian audiences. "In fact, such lectures were then delivered to members of state-owned defence companies," prosecutors said.
Later on Wednesday, an investigating judge at Germany’s Federal Court of Justice served the two suspects with formal arrest warrants and ordered that they be held in pre-trial detention.
Federal prosecutors said the investigation was conducted in cooperation with Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).
German investigators have targeted suspected Chinese scientific espionage in recent years.
In April 2024, prosecutors arrested three suspects in Dusseldorf and Bad Homburg accused of passing information on military technology to China’s MSS intelligence service. The espionage charges were later dropped, though the trio was convicted over the illegal export of specialized lasers to China.
In another case, a US citizen was sentenced by a court in Koblenz in February to two years and eight months in prison for spying for China. The court found he had intended to pass sensitive US military information to Chinese state authorities, though he was arrested before carrying out the plan.
