Tens of thouseands of dollars was his price to sell out and betray his country to the Chinese Goverment.
Thanks to our FBI officers, they cought him on tape selling out to the other side.
I wish I could say this was a surprise, but as John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement: “The trail of Chinese espionage is long and, sadly, strewn with former American intelligence officers who betrayed their colleagues, their country and its liberal democratic values to support an authoritarian communist regime.”
Our friends at CNN have more on this story:
Federal prosecutors accused a former CIA officer of selling sensitive defense secrets to the Chinese government over a decade in an espionage case revealed in Hawaii on Monday.
Alexander Yuk Ching Ma allegedly handed over information about the CIA’s personnel and tradecraft to Chinese intelligence and was given tens of thousands of dollars in return.
A naturalized US citizen born in Hong Kong, Ma, 67, told an undercover FBI agent posing as a Chinese intelligence officer earlier this month that he wanted “the motherland” to succeed, according to court documents.
Senior officials called Ma a traitor.“The trail of Chinese espionage is long and, sadly, strewn with former American intelligence officers who betrayed their colleagues, their country and its liberal democratic values to support an authoritarian communist regime,” John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement.
Ma joins a list of former intelligence officials accused by the US in recent years of spying on behalf of the Chinese.Tension between the two countries is peaking as the Trump administration has increasingly shamed Beijing for its alleged attempts to steal national security and trade secrets.
The Guardian also shared some interesting facts:
The relative was identified only as co-conspirator 1, an 85-year-old naturalised citizen living in Los Angeles, who worked as a CIA officer from 1971 to 1982 with the highest clearance level, with access to the identity of covert CIA officers.
According to court documents, the co-conspirator is suffering from a severe cognitive disease so the FBI was not seeking an arrest warrant “at this time”.
The charge sheet said that the conspiracy began in March 2001 with three days of meetings in a Hong Kong hotel room with at least five Chinese intelligence officials in March 2001, during which the two former CIA officers provided information to the Chinese foreign intelligence service about the CIA’s operations, including “the cover used by CIA officers” and their identities.
“Part of the meeting was captured on videotape, including a portion where Ma can be seen receiving and counting $50,000 in cash for the secrets they provided,” the justice department statement said. Court documents do not make clear who made the video recording of the 2001 meeting.
The United States' Department Of Justice issued a statement on the 17th of August:
“The charges announced today are a sobering reminder to our communities in Hawaii of the constant threat posed by those who seek to jeopardize our nation’s security through acts of espionage,” said U.S. Attorney Price.
"Of particular concern are the criminal acts of those who served in our nation’s intelligence community, but then choose to betray their former colleagues and the nation-at large by divulging classified national defense information to China. My office will continue to tenaciously pursue espionage cases.”
“This serious act of espionage is another example in a long string of illicit activities that the People's Republic of China is conducting within and against the United States,” said Alan E. Kohler Jr., Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division. “This case demonstrates that no matter the length or difficulty of the investigation, the men and women of the FBI will work tirelessly to protect our national security from the threat posed by Chinese intelligence services.Let it be known that anyone who violates a position of trust to betray the United States will face justice, no matter how many years it takes to bring their crimes to light.”
“These cases are very complicated and take years if not decades to bring to a conclusion,” said Eli Miranda, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Honolulu Division.“I could not be more proud of the work done by the men and women of the FBI's Honolulu Division in pursuing this case. Their dedication is a reminder that the FBI will never waiver when it comes to ensuring the safety and security of our nation.”
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