FBI says Chinese stakeholder in proposed plant has been engaged in two-decade conspiracy to steal US nuclear secrets

A network of agents, payments from a Beijing-backed slush fund and a series of illicit transfers of highly sensitive nuclear knowhow: the case against Britain’s Chinese partner in the controversial Hinckley Point C project could have leapt from the pages of a modern spy thriller.

According to the US Department of Justice, the FBI has discovered evidence that China General Nuclear Power (CGN) has been engaged in a conspiracy to steal US nuclear secrets stretching back almost two decades.

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