A former CIA officer has been arrested on a charge that he conspired to sell U.S. secrets to the Chinese government before getting caught in an FBI undercover sting operation.
A criminal complaint unsealed on Monday said Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 67, was arrested in Hawaii on Friday and charged with conspiring with a relative of his — also a former CIA officer who is identified only as “Co-Conspirator #1,” born in Shanghai and living in Los Angeles — to provide Chinese intelligence with top-secret classified information. The duo “conspired with each other and multiple PRC intelligence officials to communicate classified national defense information over the course of a decade,” according to court documents. Ma’s relative, who is 81, was not charged “due solely” to the fact that he “suffers from an advanced and debilitating cognitive disease,” said the criminal complained filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii.
Ma, who was born in Hong Kong but became a naturalized citizen, worked for the CIA from 1982 through 1989 in the East Asian and Pacific region and then lived in Shanghai until moving to Hawaii in 2001. The FBI’s Honolulu Field Office hired Ma as a Chinese linguist and translator in 2001, and the Justice Department says, for six years, he copied, photographed, and stole classified documents and even took some of the stolen documents with him on his frequent trips to China to provide to his handlers with China’s Ministry of State Security, with Ma coming back to the United States with thousands of dollars in cash and expensive gifts.
“The scheme began with three days of meetings in Hong Kong in March 2001 during which the two former CIA officers provided information to the foreign intelligence service about the CIA’s personnel, operations, and methods of concealing communications. 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 said. “The court documents further allege that after Ma moved to Hawaii, he sought employment with the FBI in order to once again gain access to classified U.S. government information which he could in turn provide to his PRC handlers.”
Prosecutors said Ma’s scheme unraveled thanks to an FBI investigation by the field offices in Honolulu and Los Angeles. The court records show that in the spring 2019, Ma “confirmed his espionage activities to an FBI undercover employee Ma believed was a representative of the PRC intelligence service” during two meetings and “accepted $2,000 in cash from the FBI undercover as ‘small token’ of appreciation for Ma’s assistance to China.” Ma also said he’d be willing to work for Chinese intelligence again. On Wednesday, Ma “again accepted money for his past espionage activities, expressed his willingness to continue to help the Chinese government, and stated that he wanted ‘the motherland’ to succeed” during another meeting with FBI undercover agents, the complaint said.
“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,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said in a statement. “This betrayal is never worth it. Whether immediately, or many years after they thought they got away with it, we will find these traitors and we will bring them to justice. To the Chinese intelligence services, these individuals are expendable. To us, they are sad but urgent reminders of the need to stay vigilant.”
The Justice Department said Ma “is charged with conspiracy to communicate national defense information to aid a foreign government and faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment” if he is found guilty.
The Justice Department has increased its scrutiny of China’s illegal activities recently, starting the China Initiative in 2018 and prosecuting Chinese nationals in espionage cases, cracking down on hacking schemes, prosecuting efforts to steal trade secrets, and going after the Thousand Talents Program, including Harvard professor Charles Lieber.
Jerry Chun Shing Lee, another former CIA officer, pleaded guilty in May 2019 for “conspiring to communicate, deliver, and transmit national defense information” to the Chinese government.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said in June that the bureau had more than 2,000 active investigations connected to the Chinese Communist Party, and the U.S. recently arrested a number of Chinese military members who had lied on their visa applications to conduct research in the U.S.
The U.S. government has pointed to China’s hacking of the Office of Personnel Management, the credit reporting agency Equifax, the health insurance company Anthem, and others as serious concerns. In June, the Justice Department charged Chinese hackers linked to Chinese intelligence for a host of cyberespionage crimes.
