PROSECUTORS in Shanghai have indicted two foreign investigators linked to drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which is at the center of a bribery scandal in China, the official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.

    British national Peter Humphrey, 58, and his 61-year-old wife Yu Yingzeng, a U.S. citizen, are charged with illegally obtaining private information on Chinese citizens, Xinhua said.

    The case is the first indictment by Chinese prosecutors against foreigners for illegal investigation, the report said.

    Legal experts said the maximum penalty for illegally obtaining and trading personal information is three years in prison.

    Prosecutors said the couple illegally sold personal information including details of household registrations, property and car ownership, call logs and exit-entry records to multinational corporations in the country, including GSK China.

    Information was either bought or obtained through means including secret photography or infiltration, Xinhua said.

    Humphrey, a veteran fraud investigator and former journalist for the news agency Reuters, founded Shanghai-based risk advisory firm ChinaWhys in 2004, while Yu worked as its general manager.

    GSK hired Humphrey to investigate the origin of a sex tape of Mark Reilly, the former boss of its China division, Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper has reported. Reilly was accused of ordering employees to bribe hospitals, doctors and health institutions to gain billions of dollars in revenue, Chinese authorities said in May after a 10-month investigation.(SD-Agencies)