China’s counter-espionage agency has caught a foreign spy trying to take photos of military facilities off the country’s coast, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday.
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The spy and an assistant posed as tourists to visit an island to gather intelligence on sensitive military facilities, the report said, citing security authorities in the eastern province of Zhejiang.
The authorities had been tipped off that foreign intelligence agencies planned to send spies to the island and intervened, confiscating several SD memory cards that contained photos of military sites and sensitive areas.
The Ministry of State Security’s Zhejiang branch said the two first took a taxi to tour local attractions but then headed to areas near the military zones.
“We observed the vehicle making several rounds on the island. When approaching the military areas, they slowed down, rolled down the windows, and took note of the location and features of the targets,” the report quoted an officer as saying.
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The spy and his assistant had “faced legal consequences”, CCTV said, without saying or where the incident took place.