Foreign Couple Jailed In China For Breaching Privacy Laws

(RTTNews) - China has jailed a British corporate investigator along with his American for breaching the country's privacy laws. They have been charged of illegally securing private information of Chinese citizens.

They were sentenced in a Shanghai court on Friday. It is the first indictment Chinese prosecutors have announced on foreigners for illegal investigation.

The couple, Peter William Humphrey, a 58-year-old British national, and his wife Yu Ying Zeng, a 61-year old Chinese-born American, were arrested and detained last year.

Humphrey will serve a jail term of two-and-a-half years and Zeng will serve a jail term of two years. The couple have also being asked to pay a combined fine of $55,000. They have a right to appeal against the verdict.

They were hired by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK, GSK.L) China's Mark Reilly as private eyes in 2013 to investigate a former employee for bribery charges in China.

Prosecutors in Shanghai have found that the couple illegally trafficked a huge amount of personal information on Chinese citizens between April, 2009 and July, 2013 to seek profits through a company called ChinaWhys Co. Ltd., which was registered in 2004 in Shanghai.

The couple compiled so-called "reports" and sold them at high prices to their clients, most of which are China-based multinational corporations, including GSK China. Humphrey also admitted to having used illegal means to do his investigation, including buying others' information and tailing after them.