Peter William Humphrey

Peter William Humphrey (born March 1956), commonly known as Han Feilong (Chinese: 韩飞龙) in China, is a former British journalist and private detective, who became famous in media for his arrest by the Shanghai Police due to his illegal acquisition of personal data of Chinese citizens. After released from China in 2018, after 2 years' detention, he claimed Shanghai to be the most corrupt city in China and described the torment he had suffered at Qingpu Prison to global media.[1] In December 2019, he wrote an article for The Sunday Times about a London family who bought charity cards from Tesco and found appeals for help written from Qingpu Prison on the cards,[2] which drew global attention to the prison where Humphrey was held.[3][4] However, his claims to have been tortured at Qingpu, and the claimed appeals on the charity cards, have been strongly denied by both Chinese government and Chinese media.

Peter William Humphrey
Peter Humphrey filmed by Voice of America
BornMarch 1956 (age 64)
UK
Other names韩飞龙
OccupationPrivate detective, journalist

Early life

During the 1980s and 1990s, Humphrey worked for Reuters as a correspondent. Since the late 1990s, he began to doing jobs in risk management. In 2003, he founded a risk management company called ChinaWhys (Chinese: 中慧),[5] whose websites claimed to provide creative solutions to tricky business problems in China.[6]

In 2004, he and his Chinese American wife Yu Yingzeng founded Shelian Consultation (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. in Shanghai, whose clients were mostly large multinational corporations in China. The company hired dozens of employees, among which Humphrey was the general manager of the company and his wife the legal representative.[7][8]

Illegal acquisition of personal data

GlaxoSmithKline's China bribery

In March 2013, secretly filmed sex tapes of Mark Rilley, GlaxoSmithKline's then head in China, were emailed to 13 senior executives of the company, including the CEO Andrew Witty, in March 2013.[9][10] According to The Sunday Times, the videos were accompanied by detailed accusations of the company's "pervasive bribery" in China made by an anonymous writer called "gskwhistleblower".[10]

Since April 2013, ChinaWhys was paid by British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline to investigate into the source of the sex tapes.[11] Humphrey submitted his report on 6 June 2013 to GlaxoSmithKline about his results of investigations.[12] The Sunday Times said that Humphrey was unaware of the company's bribery allegations until June.[10] In the same month, the Chinese police made public their investigations into GlaxoSmithKline's bribery in China.[13]

In July, the case went into legal processes. On 18 August 2013, Humphrey and his wife were arrested by Shanghai police due to their illegal acquisition of personal data of Chinese citizens. In May 2014, Mark Rilley was arrested due to his direct involvement and encouragement of bribery.[14]

Televised trial in Shanghai

The Humphrey couple was arrested in August 2013, yet the formal prosecution was not made until July 2014 when the couple was accused of "illegal acquisition of personal data of Chinese citizens."[15] On 8 August 2014, Humphrey and his wife were tried in No. 1 Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai Municipality. For the case was the first case of "illegal acquisition of personal data" in China that involved foreign citizens, the trial was made public on Weibo, which also made the case the first broadcast trial of crimes involving foreigners.[8]

Relatives of defendants, representatives of the UK and US consulates, deputies to National People's Congress, member of the CPPCC, ordinary Shanghai citizens, and Chinese media were present in the trial, while foreign media was excluded as requested by Humphrey.[8] The persecutor said that Humphrey and his wife were paid by several clients to investigate into personal data of Chinese companies and Chinese citizens illegally and sold them to their clients, during which they earned several million RMB.[8][7] According to Xinhua, the information included the family member's information, the content of the household register, the information of real estate ownership, car ownership, telephone records, and the records of leaving and entering China. The information were said to be acquired through illegal trade, secret filming and stalking.[15] At around 22:00 that day, Humphrey made confessions and a formal apology in the court. The court made the ruling that Humphrey should be held for 2 and a half years in prison and pay a fine of 200 thousand RMB before deported from China.[8]

Although his wife Yu Yingzeng was a US citizen, the court considered her personal conditions and criminal conditions and did not expel her from China.[11] Yu said she never knew acquiring third-hand personal data was illegal in Mainland China and admitted they had done similar investigations in Hong Kong and other areas. Humphrey once said during his detention before the trial that he was deceived by GlaxoSmithKline, which did not tell him details of the severity of the company's bribery.[16][17]

According to Chinese media The Paper, a former Chinese female executive at GlaxoSmithKline China's government affairs department who was born in 1964, should have been involved in reporting the company's bribery to the senior executives of the company and the Chinese government, as said by some employees of other foreign pharmaceutical companies in China interviewed by The Paper. According to the Financial Times, Humphrey implied that the female executive might frame him into jail. He was told she managed to acquire a copy of Humphrey's report. Humphrey believed she was the whistleblower.[17]

Release and deportation

In June 2015, Humphrey was released ahead of schedule due to health issues. Then he was sent to a Shanghai hospital to make a diagnosis about cancer. After leaving the hospital, he was deported from China. His wife was released the same month.[14][18] The UK Consulate in Shanghai prepared them with new passports for emergency so that they could return to the UK.[13] Humphrey was banned from entering China for 10 years. After returning to the UK, the couple still faced health and financial difficulties. Humphrey was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which Humphrey claimed to be worsened by poor conditions and delayed treatment in the prison. Yet, the Chinese authorities consistently denied such accusations. In March 2017, they sued GlaxoSmithKline as they believed that GlaxoSmithKline misled them to unpredictable legal risk and sought for compensations, while GlaxoSmithKline believed such accusation to be unreasonable.[19]

Tesco charity cards

On 22 December 2019, Humphrey wrote an article for The Sunday Times, which soon made global headlines. In the article, it was reported that a girl from Tooting, South London, England found help information in a charity card bought from Tesco. The help information claimed to be written by foreign prisoners at Qingpu Prison, Shanghai, and asked for contact with Humphrey. Humphrey said that the father of the girl contacted Humphrey so he wrote the article, and he also claimed to know who wrote the information.[20][21][22] Yunguang, the printing company which made the cards, said this news was faked.[23][24] Guang Shuang, China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, denied forced labor at Qingpu and said this was a farce played by Humphrey.[25]

Family

Humphrey has a wife called Yu Yingzeng (Chinese: 虞英曾), who was born in Beijing in August 1953. She is a US citizen and has a master's degree.[16] The couple has a son called Harvey Humphrey, who was 19 in 2014.[14]

gollark: I'd say that correctness is more important than optimization.
gollark: Well, kind of, though we have several gigabytes of it to spare these days.
gollark: It's probably sensible to use whatever data format is convenient instead of prematurely optimizing.
gollark: SoWhat(tm)?
gollark: Especially since in Python said integer will in fact be a bigint.

References
  1. "韩飞龙：上海是中国最腐败的城市". Welle Deutsche (in Chinese). 2015-09-18. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  2. Humphrey, Peter. "Tesco charity cards 'packed by China's prison slaves'". ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  3. Xiong, Yong; Toh, Michelle (2019-12-23). "Tesco's Chinese Christmas card maker denies using forced prison labor". CNN. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  4. Siddique, Haroon (2019-12-22). "Tesco withdraws Christmas cards from sale after forced labour claims". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  5. "About Us". ChinaWhys. Archived from the original on 2017-11-18. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  6. "疑涉葛兰素史克贿案 英国人被正式逮捕". BBC. 2013-08-21. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  7. 王选辉 (2014-08-08). "首例外国人售卖公民信息案开审 被告人无异议". 新浪网-法制晚报. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  8. 邹伟; 黄安琪 (2014-08-09). "首例在华外国人非法获取公民信息案一审 2人获刑". 搜狐网-新华网. Archived from the original on 2014-08-11. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  9. "Sex, bribes and videotapes: GSK ex-boss deported from China". The Independent. 2014-09-19. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  10. Rankin, Jennifer (2014-06-30). "GlaxoSmithKline confirms existence of sex tape of former China boss". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  11. "葛兰素史克案英国调查员韩飞龙夫妇上海获刑". BBC. 2014-08-08. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  12. "GSK-linked investigators Peter Humphrey and Yu Yingzeng face secret trial". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on 2019-08-16. Retrieved 2020-01-01.
  13. "台媒：大陆提前释放葛兰素史克私人侦探(图)". 央广网-参考消息. 2015-06-11. Archived from the original on 2019-12-26. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  14. 黄炜恩 (2015-06-11). "中国提前释放葛兰素史克研究员妻子". BBC. Archived from the original on 2017-03-19. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  15. "中国对GSK私人侦探提出正式控罪". BBC (in Chinese). 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  16. 陈志芬 (2014-08-08). "英国侦探夫妇上海受审韩飞龙否认控罪". BBC. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  17. 闫, 鹏飞 (2014-07-04). "葛兰素史克外籍调查员狱中喊冤，该案或不公开审理". 澎湃新闻. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  18. Carrie Gracie (2015-07-10). "Investigator Peter Humphrey warns over GSK China ordeal". BBC. Archived from the original on 2019-12-09. Retrieved 2020-01-01.
  19. "前侦探夫妇状告英国制药巨头致其在华坐牢". BBC. 2017-03-14. Archived from the original on 2017-03-18. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  20. Humphrey, Peter (2019-12-22). "Tesco charity cards 'packed by China's prison slaves'". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 2019-12-25. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  21. "Girl's find in Tesco card halts China production". BBC. 2019-12-22. Archived from the original on 2019-12-24. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  22. "外籍囚犯在华被强迫制作圣诞贺卡？涉事英企回应". 央视. 2019-12-24. Retrieved 2019-12-25 – via 新浪.
  23. "Tesco's Chinese supplier blasts accusations of forced labor". Global Times. 2019-12-23. Archived from the original on 2019-12-23. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  24. "外籍囚犯在华被强迫制作圣诞贺卡？中企:纯属捏造". 央视. 2019-12-24. Retrieved 2019-12-25 – via 新浪.
  25. "要不是实地调查，还真被这条"反华大新闻"给唬住了". 环球时报. 2019-12-23. Retrieved 2019-12-25 – via 京报网.

Further reading
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