A 33-year-old Canadian woman was arrested by the Belgian authorities for spying at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), the military headquarters of NATO in Mons, Belgium.
The woman, named Biwei Zhang, is a “Canadian national of Chinese origin.” She is a systems engineer with a background in economics whose online resume suggests she previously worked for the Canadian Space Agency and Statistics Canada.
The suspect’s home and workplace at SHAPE were searched last Thursday, according to a media release from the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. She was reportedly arrested a day later on charges of “espionage and participation in a criminal organization.”
As CBS research shows, Biwei Zhang appears to be her legal name, but she uses the name Claire Zhang professionally, and goes by Catina Zhang on her Facebook profile.
Zhang, with a background in computer science and system engineering, began her internship at NATO in July 2025, and she also sought housing in Geneva in 2023 right before an internship at the World Trade Organization.
Belgian officials say Zhang will remain in pretrial custody for at least another month as the investigation continues.
National Security Concerns
According to CBS, Zhang has held a range of positions at federal agencies, including as a data scientist for the National Research Council for six months in 2017, an economist for StatsCan from April 2018 to October 2022, and then as a systems engineer at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) from May 2022.
She also lists experience as a policy analyst for the European Space Agency, and the economic research and statistics division of the World Trade Organization, as well as positions on “mirror committees” of the Standards Council of Canada, a Crown corporation that acts “as Canada’s voice on standards and accreditation on the international stage.”
In an emailed statement, the European Space Agency said it applies standard screening procedures for positions that do not require security clearance, and relies on “the relevant national security authority [to] conduct a comprehensive vetting process of the individual concerned” when classified information is involved.
Former CSIS intelligence officer Dan Stanton told CBC News that while he does not have direct knowledge of the case, he can see why NATO would be concerned about possible intelligence breaches. He says intern positions are an “excellent in-road” that he likened to an “Achilles heel” for an organization like NATO.
