“Compromising situations”: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution: Foreign secret services want to lure managers into traps

According to media reports, the Nvidia boss's affair is said to have connections to Chinese intelligence. In this country too, intimate relationships between managers could be abused, warns the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution warns of so-called honey traps that foreign secret services could use to specifically spy on German political and business leaders. The aim is to “create compromising situations for the target person through interpersonal relationships,” explained the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) when asked by the “Handelsblatt”.

The background is US media reports about an extramarital affair between Nvidia boss Jensen Huang and an entrepreneur who may have connections to the Chinese secret service. Huang confirmed the affair. However, it is unclear whether this is a case of espionage.

According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, “relevant target persons are systematically selected and researched” for such operations. The goal is for them to later be “either put under pressure or permanently induced to cooperate consciously or unconsciously.”

The chairman of the Bundestag's intelligence control committee, Marc Henrichmann, believes that similar espionage attempts are also possible in German companies. It cannot be ruled out that Chinese intelligence services are specifically trying to establish contacts right up to the management levels of German companies, Henrichmann told the Handelsblatt.

Chinese espionage is "no longer an abstract threat, but a real, everyday challenge in Germany too," warned the security politician. German companies and research institutions are among the world leaders in many key technologies and are therefore "an attractive target for foreign intelligence services."