The British corporate detective hired by GlaxoSmithKline to discover who had been sending explicit videos of the drugs giant’s China boss has been formally charged by prosecutors in the country, it was announced today.
Peter Humphrey, a former Reuters correspondent and highly regarded operator in the region, is charged with “illegally obtaining private information”. His American wife Yu Yingzeng has been served with the same charges.
The couple’s trial has reportedly been set for 7 August. Humphrey’s investigations agency, ChinaWhys, was attempting to discover who had sent a sex tape of Glaxo’s general manager in China, Mark Reilly, to senior executives at Glaxo.
The emails containing the video, of Reilly with his girlfriend, are also thought to have included a number of allegations of corruption against him.
The charges are the latest chapter in an extremely damaging story for Glaxo, which is accused by prosecutors of having bribed its way to winning drug supply contracts in the company. ChinaWhys is widely used by British and other multinationals to carry out due diligence on companies and people on China, which is notorious for corruption. The Xinhua news agency, in today’s charges, said Humphrey and Yu had “illegally trafficked a huge amount of personal information on Chinese citizens for profit.”
The information had been obtained by “secret photography, infiltration or tailing after someone”. It accused the pair of compiling “so-called reports” and selling them “at high prices” to their clients.
State-run China Central Television today ran an interview with Humphrey in which he said he and Yu “deeply regret” breaking any Chinese law.
