 Starting from 1944, Lui managed to land a series of low-level support staff positions with foreign embassies in Moscow, which got him into trouble with the NKVD; he was arrested in Leningrad around 1946 and later tried and sentenced to 25 years of labour camps on espionage charges (Article 58).He did time in Inta.He was released around 1956 and started co-operating closely with the KGB.