cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10681984

Senior Home Office leader surveyed 916 Chinese students in the UK for his doctoral research.

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UK universities are turning a blind eye to widespread coercion of Chinese students by crime gangs, a police expert has said. David Wilson, a regional leader of the Home Office’s Organised Immigration Crime Task Force, made the claim after surveying 916 Chinese students in the UK as part of his doctoral research.

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He found that one in eight Chinese students had either personally come under pressure to help crime gangs or knew someone who had faced such pressure.

“Universities should be trying to identify the problem or at least admitting that there is a problem,” said Wilson.

He warned that “Chinese organised crime is the biggest single thematic crime threat to the UK in terms of both its criminal and national security implications”.

Wilson’s research, the most comprehensive known investigation of China-linked gangs in the UK in recent decades, also found multiple weaknesses in police forces’ ability to tackle the issue, including a shortage of language skills, cultural understanding and Chinese officers able to work undercover when necessary.

Alicia Kearns, a shadow junior Home Office minister, called Wilson’s work “vital research”.

She said it was clear that Chinese criminal networks — like gangs of other nationalities — were involved in drugs, prostitution, political repression, modern slavery and espionage.

Students from China account for 23 per cent of overseas students at UK higher education institutions, making them the second-largest national group behind learners from India.

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Chloe Cheung, UK public affairs manager for the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, which campaigns for Hongkongers’ rights, endorsed Wilson’s findings.

She called for universities to establish mechanisms for students to make anonymous reports of foreign interference.

“Hong Kong and Chinese students on campus are highly vulnerable to recruitment by criminal networks, as these operate transnationally and can use family and other connections back home to exert leverage on victims,” Cheung said.

In one of the few prosecutions of a Chinese student for involvement in organised crime, Xiaotong Huang, a student from Beijing at the University of Stirling, was jailed in 2023 for 18 months for laundering £85,000 on behalf of a Glasgow-based organised crime boss of Chinese origin.

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Wilson said criminals typically lured students by first doing them small favours such as lending them small amounts of money. The Chinese embassy in the UK said its government was “firmly committed” to combating transnational crime, including that aimed at students.

“It actively engages in international law enforcement co-operation to that end,” it said. “The law enforcement authorities of China and the UK have maintained communication and co-ordination on these matters, and we hope both sides will continue to strengthen such co-operation.” Most of the coercion uncovered in the study involved crimes such as accepting a bank transfer for someone else or agreeing to accept a package for someone else.

Disguised bank transfers can facilitate money laundering, while the packages often contain drugs or other contraband goods. A small proportion of respondents, 1.2 per cent, reported being aware of young women who had been coerced into sex work, such as performing for pornographic webcam sites.

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Wilson said organised crime groups were sexually exploiting “young Chinese girls”.

Universities UK, the higher education trade body, said it was vital students understood UK law when studying in the country and that they felt able to report outside influence and receive support in resisting it.

“We are committed to continuing to partner with government to support and equip students to do so,” it said.

But it added that universities could not tackle the issue alone. The organisation said: “Ultimate responsibility for identifying and investigating suspected criminal activity must lie with the appropriate legal authorities.”

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