A former U.S. intelligence officer has pleaded guilty to spying on behalf of China and agreed to a 15-year prison sentence, federal officials announced Friday.
Chinese agents recruited Ron Rockwell Hansen in early 2014 and paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hanson then spent two years trying to recruit a co-conspirator to provide details about military readiness in a particular region, but that case officer reported the issue and cooperated in a sting to end the espionage.
“This case drives home the troubling reality of insider threats and that current and former clearance holders will be targeted by our adversaries,” Eric Barnhart, the FBI special agent in charge of the case, said when Hansen was arrested last year. “The FBI will aggressively investigate individuals who put our national security at risk.”
The guilty plea takes place amid widespread concerns about Chinese espionage against the United States, including conventional operations such as the recruitment of potential sources and the use of “non-traditional” collectors who work throughout American society. A new federal law bans the use of Chinese telecommunications systems by the U.S. government, as lawmakers worry that such companies and even academic programs could give Chinese spy services a competitive edge.
Hansen’s case was a throwback to an earlier era. Like the similarly-named Robert Philip Hanssen before him — the infamous former FBI agent who spied for the Russians from 1979 to 2001 — the Utah native was paid handsomely for the information.
