A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for spying for the Chinese government.
Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 71, of Honolulu, was arrested in August 2020 after admitting to an undercover FBI agent that he sold US secrets to China, the US Department of Justice said on Wednesday. He admitted that he had facilitated the provision of classified information to intelligence officers employed by China’s Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB).
Ma has been sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release announced Assistant Attorney General Matthew G Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, US Attorney Clare E Connors for the District of Hawaii and Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells of the FBI’s National Security Branch.
According to court documents, Ma, a US citizen born in Hong Kong worked for the CIA from 1982 until 1989.
Officials said Ma collaborated with a relative who is now deceased, and who worked for the CIA from 1967 until 1983.
As CIA officers, both Ma and his relative held top secret security clearances that granted them access to sensitive and classified CIA information, and both signed non-disclosure agreements, officials said.
Ma admitted in the plea agreement, in March 2001, over a decade after he resigned from the CIA, that he was contacted by SSSB intelligence officers, who asked him Ma to arrange a meeting between his relative and the SSSB.
During the meetings that were held in a Hong Kong hotel room for three days, Ma’s relative provided the SSSB with a large volume of classified US information in return for USD 50,000 in cash.
In March, while living in Hawaii, Ma took up a job as a contract linguist in the FBI’s Honolulu Field Office.
“The FBI, aware of Ma’s ties to PRC intelligence, hired Ma as part of a ruse to monitor and investigate his activities and contacts with the SSSB,” prosecutors said on Wednesday.
Ma, they said worked part-time at an offsite location for the FBI from August 2004 until October 2012.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, Ma must cooperate with the United States for the rest of his life, including by submitting to debriefings by US government agencies. (With inputs from ANI)
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