Top NATO Scientist With High-Level Security Clearance Spied For Chinese Intelligence

Intelligence services for the country of Estonia have reportedly uncovered that one of its top scientists had been recruited by Chinese military intelligence and was working at a sensitive NATO research institution specializing in maritime and submarine research, according to a bombshell Daily Beast report.

While Baltic countries' intelligence services have been heavily focused on exposing Russian plots and operatives, it's believed that Chinese operatives have recently made deep inroads into Eastern Europe, despite this latest case being the first conviction of its kind.

According to Aleksander Toots, the deputy director of KAPO and Tallinn's top counterintelligence official, Kõuts was recruited in 2018 by China's Intelligence Bureau of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission-as Beijing's military intelligence agency is known-along with an alleged accomplice who is yet to be tried in court.

The top Estonian intelligence official further said that Kõuts was recruited on Chinese territory during a trip: "He was motivated by traditional human weaknesses, such as money and need of recognition," Toots said.

Akin to recent cases in the US involving similar accusations of Chinese influence ops and research theft and gaining access to trade secrets, the spy's handlers had used a think tank as cover.

He'd had a NATO security clearance for fourteen years as well as a 'state secret permit' in Estonia.

The Estonian intelligence official Toots had said further as part of his statement that Kõuts's possessing security clearances :"Was one of the reasons we decided to put a stop to his collaboration so early."
 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/top-nato-scientist-high-level-security-clearance-spied-chinese-intelligence