A former CIA officer has been arrested and charged with selling secrets to China over several years, the justice department announced.
According to prosecutors, the former US spy – identified as Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 67 – conspired with an unnamed family member, also a former CIA officer, to sell secrets in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars and gifts.
Ma was arrested Friday, following a stabbing operation by the FBI. The family member was only identified as Co-conspirator 1, an 85-year-old naturalized citizen living in Los Angeles who worked as a CIA officer from 1971 to 1982 with the highest level of clearance, with access to the identity of secret CIA officers.
According to court documents, the co-conspirator was suffering from a serious cognitive illness, so the FBI was not “currently” seeking an arrest warrant.
The prosecutor said the conspiracy began in March 2001 with a three-day meeting in a Hong Kong hotel room with at least five Chinese intelligence officials in March 2001, in which the two former CIA officials provided information to the Chinese Foreign Intelligence Service on the CIA’s operations. , including “the cover used by CIA officers” and their identities.
“Part of the meeting was videotaped, including a part where Ma can be seen receiving and counting $ 50,000 in cash for the secrets she provided,” the Justice Department statement said. Court documents do not make clear who made the video recording of the 2001 meeting.
Ma was born in Hong Kong and moved to Hawaii in 1968, where she attended school and university. He began working for the CIA in 1982, working with top secret clearance. He retired from the agency in 1989 and went to live and work in Shanghai until 2001, when he apparently met with Chinese intelligence agencies before moving to Hawaii.
Once in Hawaii, according to court documents, Ma asked for a job as a linguist at the FBI office there, to check and translate documents. In April 2003, he is accused of using a prepaid calling card to contact his Chinese dealers to update them on his FBI employment.
“Over the next six years, Ma has regularly copied, photographed and stolen documents that display U.S. classification marks such as ‘SECRET,'” the Justice Department claims. The prosecutor alleges that he burned photos of US missiles and other weapons technology on a CD-ROM. ‘Ma took some of the stolen documents and pictures with him on his frequent trips to China with the intention of delivering them to his traders. Ma often returned from China with thousands of dollars in cash and expensive gifts, such as a new set of golf clubs. ”
It said that in the spring of 2019, an FBI undercover employee posed as a Chinese intelligence officer, Ma approached the condition to assess how he was treated by his former dealers and how much he was paid. The undercover agent gave him $ 2,000 as a “small sign” of appreciation for Ma’s past assistance to China.
The statement claims that Ma offered to work for Chinese intelligence.
At a follow-up meeting last week, Ma is accused of accepting more money from the undercover FBI agent and “expressed the willingness to continue with the Chinese government, stating that he would succeed ‘the mother country'”. But Ma said he would prefer to restore his espionage work only after the Covid pandemic had subsided.
“The trail of Chinese espionage is long and, sadly, at odds with former U.S. intelligence officers who betrayed their colleagues, their country and its liberal democratic values to support an authoritarian communist regime,” the Assistant Attorney General for National Security said. , John Demers.
‘This betrayal is never worth it. Either away, or many years after they thought they were gone with it, we will find these betrayals and we will bring them to justice. To the Chinese intelligence services, these individuals are to be expended. To us, they are sad but urgent reminders of the need to stay alert. ”
Ma will appear in court in Honolulu on Tuesday, and will be charged with conspiracy to communicate information on national defense to assist a foreign government. He will receive a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted.
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