A former CIA officer and later FBI agent who was arrested last week and accused of spying for China told an undercover agent that he wanted the “motherland” to succeed, according to a press release from the Justice Department which described the case against him.
Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 67, was arrested on August 14 after allegedly colluding with one of his relatives to provide classified information to the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) – the country’s most important intelligence agency.
Ma – a naturalized citizen born in Hong Kong – joined the CIA in 1982 and enjoyed a Top Secret clearance, giving him access to a wide range of classified files and sensitive information. Ma left the CIA in 1989 and moved to Shanghai, before returning to the US to live in Hawaii, where he worked as an FBI translation agent.
Court documents accused Ma of collaborating with an unnamed relative to provide information to the MSS. The 85-year-old relative is a naturalized U.S. citizen and former CIA agent born in Shanghai who has not been arrested for suffering from “an advanced and debilitating cognitive condition.”
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The unnamed family member left the CIA in 1983 after finding out he was using his position to invade Chinese citizens into the US.
Ma and his family member have been working together for over a decade to gather with multiple Chinese intelligence officials, the DOJ said. The plot began in 2001 with three-day meetings in Hong Kong, where Ma and his relative “provided information to the foreign intelligence service about CIA personnel, operations and methods of concealing communications.”
A portion of the meeting was filmed, including Ma receiving $ 50,000 in cash and counting for the information provided to Chinese agents.
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When Ma moved to Hawaii, he applied to work for the FBI, according to the DOJ “in order to regain access to classified U.S. government information which he in turn could provide to his [Chinese] traders. “
He began working for the Honolulu Field Office in 2014 as a linguist, examining and translating Chinese documents. For the next six years, Ma used his position to copy, photograph, and steal classified American documents – including guided missile technology documents – some of which he took with him on ‘frequent’ trips to China, where he exchanged them with his handlers.
Chinese officials would provide Ma with cash and other gifts, including a new set of golf clubs. On his return to Hawaii from one trip to Shanghai in 2006, Ma was searched by Customs and Border Protection agents and found to carry $ 20,000 in cash plus his new golf clubs, court documents say.
Ma was ousted in the spring of 2019, the DOJ said, after telling an undercover FBI agent posing as a representative of the MSS that he had worked for China and accepting a payment of $ 2,000 as a “small sign” of appreciation from Beijing. But the agent also told that he wanted to work for the Chinese again.
Two days before his arrest, Ma met with an undercover FBI agent and accepted more money for his espionage from the past, again offered to continue working for Chinese intelligence. He told the agent he would like to “succeed” the motherland, the DOJ said, although claimed he only wanted to work for China again after the COVID-19 pandemic was over.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said in a statement that such “betrayal is never worth it.” In the DOJ press release, Demers said: “Or immediately, if many years after they thought they were leaving with it, we will find this traitor and we will bring them to justice.
“To the Chinese intelligence services, these people are spending. For us, they are sad but urgent reminders of the need to remain vigilant.”