A British businessman has been sensationally accused of spying for China and plotting to smuggle sensitive military technology to Beijing.
John Miller, 63, was arrested on the orders of the FBI following a sting operation and is now awaiting extradition to the United States.
Court documents seen by The Mail on Sunday show that Mr Miller referred to Chinese leader Xi Jinping as ‘The Boss’ in intercepted phone calls.
The FBI said this demonstrated his ‘awareness that he was acting at the direction and control of the [Chinese] government’. Last night, neighbours at the businessman’s five-bedroom £1.5 million home in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, expressed bemusement at the news and called him a ‘respectable family man’. His wife volunteers at her local church, and the couple’s daughter attended a leading public school. One said: ‘They are the perfect family to have as neighbours.’
Documents filed at the Eastern District Court of Wisconsin in Milwaukee allege Mr Miller tried to buy military hardware in the US for the People’s Liberation Army, including missile launchers, air defence radars and Black Hornet ‘microdrones’ that can fly within feet of enemy soldiers and enter buildings to spy on troop positions.
Other equipment he attempted to procure included a hand-held device approved by America’s National Security Agency for the secure communication of ‘classified and sensitive national security information’.
According to the court papers, Mr Miller suggested smuggling a device by glueing it inside a food blender. He said it could then be ‘sent via DHL or Fedex to Hong Kong’.
The revelation comes as America warned that China is preparing to invade Taiwan.
John Miller, 63, from Tunbridge Wells, accused by the FBI of trying to procure weapons and spying for China
John Miller pictured with members of his family
Guanghai Cui has been indicted by the FBI for trying to procure weapons for the Chinese
Mr Miller, who calls himself a recruitment specialist, was caught in a sting after the ‘arms dealers’ he was negotiating with turned out to be undercover FBI agents.
He was arrested on April 24 while on a business trip to Belgrade, Serbia, where he was being held last night.
He is accused of conspiring with US-based Chinese national, Cui Guanghai, 43. If convicted, both men face up to 40 years in prison.
A 67-page indictment states that around December 2023, messages intercepted by the FBI showed that Mr Miller communicated with an unknown person a ‘Christmas wish-list that included hardware and radar technology’.
The list includes an offer of £37,000 for a Stinger portable missile launcher, £148,000 for two military drones, £668,000 for an AGM-88E anti-radiation missile system and £1.5 million for an air defence radar system.
Mr Miller told an undercover FBI agent that the hardware would be reverse-engineered – or copied – in China. Its government, he said, was willing to pay two to three times the cost to acquire such equipment.
The indictment also accuses the pair of mounting a surveillance and harassment operation in the US against a Chinese-American artist, a vocal critic of President Xi, hiring an investigator to put a tracking device on his car.
It was claimed Mr Miller was trying to stop him from protesting during a visit by Xi to San Francisco in November 2023.
Court documents allege Mr Miller tried to buy military hardware in the US for the People’s Liberation Army
The documents seen by The Mail on Sunday show that Mr Miller referred to Chinese leader Xi Jinping as ‘The Boss’
Neighbours at the businessman’s five-bedroom £1.5 million home in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, expressed bemusement at the news
US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said: ‘The defendants targeted a US resident for exercising his constitutional right to free speech and conspired to traffic sensitive American military technology to the Chinese regime. This is a blatant assault on both our national security and our democratic values.
‘The Justice Department will not tolerate foreign repression on US soil, nor will we allow hostile nations to infiltrate or exploit our defence systems.’
According to the indictment, Mr Miller and Cui hired two people to buy an ‘embarrassing’ sculpture the artist made showing Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, kneeling on sand, naked from the waist up. The move was apparently intended to prevent the artist from displaying the work during a protest.
‘The harassment scheme placed the victim in reasonable fear for his/her safety and the safety of his/her immediate family,’ said the indictment. Unbeknown to Mr Miller the two people he hired were FBI investigators.
At one point he ordered them to slash the artist’s car tyres. They sent him pictures to show they had done as he asked – but in reality simply let the tyres down.
Separately, Mr Miller and Cui tasked someone else with staging a protest against a visit by the president of Taiwan to the US.
This person, who was actually an FBI informant, was specifically asked to make sure protesters held certain placards calling on the US not to intervene in Taiwan-Chinese tensions
The indictment says: ‘Miller specifically requested that protest signs include the following messages, “Don’t involve us in your war”; “Don’t let Taiwan become Ukraine 2”; “Look after America first.”’ The FBI informant hired actors to act as protesters in the fake demonstration, the indictment said.
A copy of the indictment against John Miller and Cui Guanghai who is also known as ‘Jack’
The former Royal Mint in London, a site favoured by the Chinese authorities as a home for it’s new embassy
The indictment also accuses the pair of mounting a surveillance and harassment operation in the US against a Chinese-American artist, a vocal critic of President Xi
FBI deputy director Dan Bongino said: ‘The defendants allegedly plotted to harass and interfere with an individual who criticised the actions of the People’s Republic of China while exercising their constitutionally protected free speech rights within the United States of America. The same individuals are also charged with trying to obtain and export sensitive US military technology to China.
‘I want to commend the good work of the FBI and our partners in the US and overseas in putting a stop to these illegal activities.’ After returning to the US from a visit to China in June 2023, Mr Miller boasted to undercover investigators that he met high-ranking Chinese government officials. He said the ‘trip couldn’t have gone better’.
His wife answered the door of their home last night, where a Mercedes stood on the drive. She said she knew nothing of his arrest and added: ‘I am not with Mr Miller.’
A neighbour said: ‘We know John often went to the Far East for his work. We would see him, then he would not be round for a few weeks or longer at a time, but we did not think anything of it. We knew his work involved a lot of travel but we did not really know what it was all about.’
According to Companies House records, Mr Miller has been a director or a majority shareholder of at least nine firms including the now-dissolved TEFL Jobs China Ltd. TEFL usually stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language.
Last night, the Foreign Office said: ‘We are providing consular assistance to a British national following his arrest in Serbia in April and are in touch with the local authorities and his family.’
