Ex-CIA Officer Pleads Guilty To Spying For China

Former CIA officer Alexander Yuk Ching Ma has pleaded guilty to conspiring to gather and send national defense information to the People's Republic of China, Mike Heuer reported for United Press International (UPI).

Ma worked for the CIA from 1982 until 1989, while his relative worked with the agency from 1967 until 1983, the DOJ said.

Ma, 71, of Honolulu, conspired with one of his relatives to provide sensitive information to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to the DOJ.

He and an unnamed relative were paid "tens of thousands of dollars" in 2001 to deliver a large amount of classified U.S. national defense information to Chinese intelligence agents.

Ma and his relative are naturalized U.S. citizens born in Hong Kong and Shanghai, China, respectively. Ma worked for the CIA from 1982 until 1989, while his relative worked with the agency from 1967 until 1983, the DOJ said.

Both men held "top secret security clearances that granted them access to sensitive and classified CIA information," and a member of the Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB) in March 2001 asked Ma to recruit his relative and meet with the bureau's officers in a Hong Kong hotel room.

The DOJ said that meeting lasted three days, during which Ma and his relative turned over classified defense information in exchange for $50,000.

Ma in March 2003 applied for a position as a contract linguist in the FBI's Honolulu office, but the agency placed him in an off-site office to monitor his activities and contacts with the PRC as part of an investigation.