(Washington) A former agent of the CIA, the main American intelligence agency, pleaded guilty to “conspiracy to collect and deliver national defense information” for China, the American Department of Justice announced Friday .
Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 71, a native of Hong Kong before becoming a naturalized American, admitted to giving “a significant amount of classified information about the national defense of the United States” in 2001 during a meeting with the Shanghai intelligence agency, even though he had not been a CIA employee for 12 years.
This meeting would have been initiated by another former CIA agent, originally from Shanghai and also a naturalized American, who is identified in the press release from the American Department of Justice as “co-conspirator No. 1”.
“At the end of the third day” of the meeting in a Hong Kong hotel, Chinese intelligence agents “provided co-conspirator No. 1 with $50,000 in cash, which Mr. Ma counted,” the statement said.
The two men “also agreed at that time to continue to help” the Shanghai intelligence service.
In 2003, Alexander Yuk Ching Ma was hired by the United States Federal Police (FBI) in Hawaii to work as a linguist. The FBI, “aware of Mr. Ma’s links with Chinese intelligence”, recruited him “as part of an investigative plan” to work in an isolated office “where his activities could be monitored”, indicates the department.
Then in 2006, “Mr. Ma convinced co-conspirator No. 1 to identify two individuals in photographs” given by the Chinese intelligence service. Alexander Yuk Ching Ma worked for the FBI until 2012.
The Department of Justice indicates that the Honolulu and Los Angeles branches participated in the investigation, but does not specify how Mr. Ma was unmasked.
If accepted by a court, the guilty plea agreement provides for a 10-year prison sentence which could be handed down on September 11.