Australia (a sewer full of Chinese rats) outlines cost of foreign espionage

NIC FILDES — SYDNEY · 1 Aug 2025

Foreign spies are “aggressively” targeting Australia in sectors spanning rare earths to Antarctic research and even stealing rare plants, according to the head of the country’s intelligence service, as he estimated the financial damage from espionage for the first time.

Australia’s role in the Aukus nuclear submarine pact with the US and UK was also the subject of “a very unhealthy” amount of interest from foreign intelligence services, said Mike Burgess, director-general of security at the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.

He said espionage had cost the country’s economy A$12.5bn (US$8bn) in 2024, according to Asio research conducted with the Australian Institute of Criminology. It is the first time that Asio has estimated the annual cost of successful espionage attempts.

Burgess described the figure, which included state-sponsored intellectual property theft as well as the costs of countering and responding to attacks, as “conservative”, noting it did not include incidents where victims were not aware they had been targeted or had not reported it. “This means the most serious, significant and cascading costs of espionage are not included,” he said.

Asio had detected and disrupted 24 major espionage and foreign interference attempts in the past three years — more than the previous eight years combined — according to Burgess.

The agency named China, Russia and Iran as “very active” in espionage in the region, highlighting attempts by foreign agents to infiltrate government agencies and the defence industry as well as media, businesses and academia.

Burgess said three people were currently facing espionage-related charges, and that attempts to infiltrate the Aukus submarine pact would result in further action. “I am confident there could be more if anyone tries to compromise Aukus,” he said.

Australia and New Zealand — members of the “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing network that also includes the US, UK and Canada — have become targets for foreign intelligence agencies.

Kash Patel, director of the FBI, opened the US agency’s first office in New Zealand yesterday, which he said would work towards “countering” the Chinese Communist party in the IndoPacific and collaborate to tackle the narcotics trade and ransomware attacks.

Burgess added that Australia was seeing more aggressive attempts to access information beyond traditional target sectors, with science and technology research, mining and commercial investments under increased scrutiny.

Burgess said a member of a foreign delegation visiting an Australian horticultural facility was caught taking photos of a rare variety of fruit tree. The images were deleted but the delegate managed to smuggle branches of the tree out of the lab and overseas.