China Raids Beijing Office of US Investigations Firm

Mintz Group targeted in March 20 incursion. Chinese employees held.

The Beijing office of a prominent American corporate investigations firm has been raided by Chinese authorities.

Mintz Group, a global firm led by fraud and corruption specialists who came from journalism, law firms, computers and banking, has confirmed that its office was raided on the afternoon of March 20. A source told Reuters, which first reported on the action, that its Beijing office was “raided by authorities and five Chinese staff were detained.”

A source told SpyTalk that “they got an expat out ahead of time,” but “it’s a big mess and problems for local employees.”

Firm founder Jim Mintz did not respond to telephone and email inquiries from SpyTalk. But in a later statement to Reuters, the company confirmed that “Chinese authorities have detained the five staff in Mintz Group’s Beijing office, all of them Chinese nationals, and have closed our operations there."