- A former CIA agent has been arrested and charged with selling US secrets to China.
- Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 67, was charged with violating U.S. espionage laws.
- Prosecutors said he provided a decade of classified information to China after leaving the CIA.
- Court documents say Ma later revealed what he had done to undercover FBI agents.
- Visit the Business Insider website for more stories.
A former CIA agent has been accused of selling secrets to China, including details about how the agency communicates, information about US weapons systems, and the identities of CIA personnel.
Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 67, was arrested Friday and charged with violating U.S. espionage laws, the Department of Justice said in a news release Monday.
Ma is accused of giving CIA information to China for years when he left the organization. Prosecutors say he later worked for the FBI, where he is accused of continuing to act as an informant.
Ma ia accused of collaborating with an unnamed family member who also worked for the CIA to “communicate classified information on national defense over a decade.”
Ma retired from the CIA in 1981, but the Justice Department said that from 2001, China began providing information on “the CIA’s personnel, operations, and methods of concealing communications.” It claims that the scheme went on for a decade.
It said part of a meeting was videotaped, “including a part where Ma can be seen receiving and counting $ 50,000 in cash for the secrets she shared [Ma and the relative] deliver. “
Prosecutors said Ma was then looking for a job as a Chinese linguist with the FBI. In this job, they say, he made copies and took photos of documents in the Honolulu field office over six years.
According to prosecutors: “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 merchants. Ma often returned from China with thousands of dollars in cash and expensive gifts, such as a new one. set golf club. “
The court documents claim that Ma confirmed that in two meetings in 2019, he sold secrets to China with an undercover FBI agent posing as a Chinese spy.
They said he accepted $ 2,000 in cash from the undercover agent as a “small sign” of appreciation for his help to China.
The DOJ said that on April 12, not long before his arrest, he took money from an undercover FBI agent and ‘accepted money again for his past espionage activities, expressed his willingness to continue with the Chinese government, and stated that he wanted to ‘the motherland’ to succeed. ‘
Ma has a maximum penalty for life in prison.
He will appear before a federal judge in Hawaii on Tuesday.
According to NBC News, Ma’s relative was not charged because he suffers from “an advanced and debilitating cognitive illness.”
John Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, said: “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 for an authoritarian communist regime. to support. “
“To the Chinese intelligence services, these people are spending. For us, they are sad but urgent reminders of the need to remain vigilant.”
