A seemingly innocuous message on a social media platform has snowballed into a man being jailed for foreign interference.
Alexander Csergo, 58, was jailed for three years and six months on Thursday after being found guilty by a jury in March of helping Chinese spies.
With time served, he will be eligible for parole in October.
Between May and December 2022, the business owner knew he was assisting Chinese operatives known only as Ken and Evelyn when he prepared fake, plagiarised reports about Australia's defence arrangements, District Court Judge Craig Smith said on Thursday.
His relationship with the spies began after the Australian IT consultant was approached on LinkedIn in November 2021 by a woman claiming to be from a Chinese think tank.
Csergo, living and working in China at the time, should have known Ken and Evelyn were working for China's Ministry of State Security, the jury found.
But Judge Smith found it was not proven that Csergo was reckless about the prospect of helping the foreign power from the moment he read the message.
"Spotting Chinese intelligence operatives on that program requires training on what to look for," the judge said.
The 58-year-old Australian used open-source information to compile reports on a variety of topics including lithium mining, German politics, defence and security.
He was specifically asked to dig up private information about Australia's involvement in the Quad security group and the AUKUS deal, Judge Smith said.
He falsely claimed he had interviewed a number of individuals, including former prime minister and Mandarin speaker Kevin Rudd.
The reports were handed to Ken or Evelyn in person - sometimes at restaurants and cafes devoid of other people - in exchange for envelopes containing the equivalent of thousands of dollars in cash.
While the information was worthless, the jury accepted prosecution submissions that the relationship with Csergo and his contacts was valuable.
"I do not consider what he did can be described as overly sophisticated," Judge Smith said.
"But there was certainly a degree of sophistication around the extensive nature of what he did."
Ken also handed the 58-year-old a "shopping list" of sensitive topics to research when he returned to Australia in early 2023.
However, the judge said there was no evidence Csergo carried out any espionage relating to the list.
Ultimately, Judge Smith ruled it was important to deter the wider community from being wooed into compromising Australia's national security.
Sentencing Csergo to time served would not appropriately reflect the seriousness of the offence to Australia's interests, he found.
