One afternoon, back in 2017, Philip Ingram sat down at his computer and logged on to the professional networking site, LinkedIn.

I got a connection request from an individual with an English-sounding first name and a Southeast Asian-sounding surname,

and his immediate description came out as a security professional based in China.

He seemed to have a goodly number of connections, one or two that I was already connected to.

I had a quick look at it and it connect.

It seemed harmless enough, and almost immediately his new contact got in touch.

Hi, my name's Robin. I might be interested in looking at some of your business services and looking at your website.

I said, yep, happy to help send me what you want and let's see if we can do things.

What Philip didn't know was that LinkedIn had become the latest route for Beijing's attempts at Espionage,

and they were looking to recruit British military and security officials, defense contractors, and civil servants to spy for them.

I initially thought that there was nothing of anything that would have rung my alarm bells at this connection request.

It was a relatively routine request and a relatively routine profile of the sort of people that you'd see on LinkedIn.

Philip's experience wasn't as unusual as you'd think. In recent years, China has increasingly been making its presence felt.

China's extending its geopolitical tentacles across the rest of the world.

You're listening to stories of our times from the times and the Sunday times. I'm Manvin Rana.

Today, how China uses LinkedIn to try to steal state secrets.

Philip Ingram is a former military intelligence officer. He had a long career in the British Army, and he has been out of that now for the best part of 20 years, but he still works in the sector.

That's Fiona Hamilton, the Crime and Security Editor at the Times, and she's telling me a bit about Philip Ingram's background.

He has a long history of experience in various security intelligence areas, and he is often called upon by the private sector to write reports on issues in this area.

He goes around the conference circuit, so he will interview and host military leaders and security officials.

He also has a detailed profile about himself on LinkedIn, the professional networking site, and that's where our story begins really.

He was contacted one day by a gentleman calling himself Robin. He said he was approaching Philip on behalf of a security company in Shanghai and China, and he wanted him to write a report on the Counterterrorism Network in the UK.

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