Chinese police said Saturday a man identified in foreign media as a Chinese spy who defected to Australia with a trove of intelligence on Beijing's political interference operations in Hong Kong and overseas was an "unemployed" fraud fugitive.
Wang Liqiang, 26, was found guilty of automobile import fraud in 2016 and given a suspended 15-month prison sentence by a court in east China's Fujian province, Shanghai police said in a statement on an official social media account.
The fraud totalled around 4.6 million yuan (USD 653,000).
His Chinese passport and Hong Kong resident document were "forged", police said, adding that authorities were "further investigating the case."