The second person ever charged with contravening Australia’s foreign interference laws appeared in a local court yesterday following his arrest a day earlier.
Alexander Csergo, 55, appeared via videoconference before a local court in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta and lawyers asked to adjourn the matter until tomorrow, which was granted by the judge.
Court documents listed a charge of reckless foreign interference against Csergo, with the offense occurring between February 2021 and this month in Australia’s New South Wales state and Shanghai.
Photo: AFP
That makes him the second person charged under the law, which criminalizes activity that helps a foreign power interfere with Australia’s sovereignty or national interest, since it was passed in 2018.
Csergo allegedly engaged in conduct on behalf of or in collaboration with persons acting on behalf of a principal, and was “reckless as to whether the conduct would support intelligence activities of a foreign principal, and a part of the conduct was covert or involved deception”, the court document said.
Csergo recently returned from China and was arrested on Friday at a residence in the Sydney suburb of Bondi, neighbors said.
Without naming Csergo, the Australian Federal Police on Friday said a man was arrested as part of a joint investigation with the country’s intelligence services, and the offense related to Australian defense and national security information.
A LinkedIn profile for an Alexander Csergo who lived in Shanghai showed that he was a digital and data marketing consultant with experience in the advertising industry in China, Singapore and Australia.
He had worked in China since 2011, it showed.
In the statement on Friday, police said the arrested man was contacted while overseas by an individual claiming to be from a think tank.
The man then met two individuals, known to him as “Ken” and “Evelyn,” who offered him money to obtain information about Australian defense, economic and national security arrangements, as well as matters relating to other countries, police said.
The court document also named “Ken” and “Evelyn” as engaging with Csergo.
Police said he compiled a number of reports for the individuals and received payment for those reports.
Police said “Ken” and “Evelyn” worked for a foreign intelligence service and are undertaking intelligence collection activities.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS