Matthew Trickett was paid to find people. The former British Royal Marine tracked down Somali pirates and Taliban fighters while he was in the armed forces. Then he started a security consultancy and tailed Hong Kong dissidents in Britain.
In May, he was found dead in a British park. Trickett, 37, had just been charged by UK police with committing national security offences in a case that has seen Trickett and two other men accused of spying for Hong Kong’s foreign intelligence service. Trickett’s targets included Nathan Law and Finn Lau, two of Hong Kong’s most prominent exiles and critics of the Chinese Communist Party.
But they also included Monica Kwong, a Hong Kong-based employee of an Australian property developer, TWT Global. Kwong moved to London in December after she allegedly stole $28 million from two companies – Yearshine Investments and TWT Global – together with three other people between July 2022 and October 2023, a Hong Kong court heard in July. Corporate documents in Hong Kong and Australia reveal Yearshine and TWT are owned by Tina Zou, a glamorous 41-year-old, Wenona-educated Sydney property developer who shot to prominence for her luxurious redevelopments in Pyrmont and St Leonards while amassing a $500 million property fortune.
In Hong Kong, Zou’s companies Yearshine Investments and TWT Global are now locked in a legal dispute with Kwong over the alleged theft of millions of dollars from her companies. The Hong Kong High Court heard in July t.