CORPORATE spies who attempted to intimidate environmental protesters outside London’s “Walkie Talkie” building today are believed to be former City of London police officers, according to campaigners.

Boycott Bloody Insurance activists said that the insurance sector had hired the two spooks to take photos of their group at their meeting point.

A source said the plain-clothed man and woman had been identified behaving “very creepily” at previous protests and are believed to be hired by a security firm made up of former City of London police.

“They’ve turned up repeatedly. They leaned over the shoulder of protesters and said we have a WhatsApp chat where we share photos of special people like you,” the insider told the Morning Star.

“As far as we know, it’s the financial buildings [who have hired them]. Possibly the landlords of the buildings,” the source added.

Officers within the force, which is partly funded by the City of London Corporation and commercial partnerships, often transition into private security, corporate risk, and intelligence firms.

Today the activists donned artistic costumes to call on the 10 insurers in the building to rule out insuring liquefied natural gas expansion in a highly sensitive area of marine biodiversity of the Coral Triangle.

The action played audio testimonies from the threatened communities of the massive marine region in south-east Asia and the western Pacific Ocean.

Filipino fisherman Maximo Bayubay said: “I have six children and I rely on fishing to get them through school and for our daily meals… I hope they listen to the cries of fisher folk like us. It isn’t like we have land of our own to till. We only have the sea.”

One of the activists, Jessica Coleman, said: “We are here to let insurers know that if they underwrite LNG expansion in the Coral Triangle they will devastate an extraordinary web of life and millions of people, which is critical for climate stability and food security globally.”

Another, Jason Renalds, said: “The costumes we are wearing represent what could be lost.

“Behind every project proposal are coral reefs, mangroves, fisheries and communities that depend on them. Insurers have the power to draw a line and say no to LNG expansion in this region.”