An employee of the leader of the AfD party was arrested in Brussels on charges of spying for China

Maximilian Krah, a staff member of the AfD leader for the European elections, was arrested on suspicion of spying for China on Monday evening. Which Reports German Weekly the time.

Jian Jie, who was born in China and is now a German citizen, has been part of KRAH's team in Brussels since 2019, and has been in the European Parliament since that year. The Public Prosecution accuses J. Spying on the Chinese opposition in Germany. G. is said to always try to infiltrate such groups to obtain more sensitive information about the participants. The Public Prosecution also stated that J. He informed Beijing from Brussels about decisions and negotiations in the European Parliament.

Krah and Jian Ji know each other from Dresden, where they live. According to research the time Krah is said to have previously represented former businessman Jian Jie as a lawyer.

Pro-Russian Ukrainian

For Krah, the arrest of his employee is not the first drawback. Last December, German media reported last week that the FBI stopped Krah on his way from the United States to Germany, where he interrogated him for an hour. Among other things, the FBI presented him with letters from pro-Russian Ukrainian politician Oleg Volostin about “compensation” for “technical expenses.” Krah says he never took money from Volostin. The €3,000 in cash the FBI also found was needed for hotels and new purchases, Krah said.

Krahe has also previously been criticized for his ties to China: for example, he is said to have received money from China to set up a German-Chinese lobbying network. This was also observed in Krah's own faction, Identity and Democracy, where some colleagues were surprised that Krah had given interviews to Chinese state media or traveled to China at the expense of state-owned enterprises.

Chinese spies

Jian Jie was not the only person recently arrested on espionage charges. Also on Monday, three people allegedly working for Beijing, a Dusseldorf couple and a Chinese secret agent, were arrested in Germany.

In the United Kingdom, it was announced on Monday that two men, aged 32 and 29, were on trial for providing information to China that might be “useful to the enemy.”