A former CIA agent on Friday pleaded guilty to spying for China, the US Department of Justice announced.
Alexander Ma (馬玉清), 71, a native of Hong Kong who became a naturalized US citizen, admitted to having provided “a large volume of classified US national defense information” to Chinese authorities in 2001, even though he had not been employed by the CIA for 12 years, the department said in a statement.
Ma’s meeting with representatives of the Shanghai State Security Bureau was initiated by another former CIA agent, Ma’s blood relative who was born in Shanghai and who also became a naturalized American, identified in the agency’s statement as “coconspirator #1,” the department said.
Photo: US Department of Justice via AP
At the end of the third day of the meeting in a Hong Kong hotel, Chinese “intelligence officers provided CC #1 with US$50,000 in cash, which Ma counted,” it said, adding that “Ma and CC #1 also agreed at that time to continue to assist” Chinese intelligence.
In 2003, Ma was hired as a linguist by the FBI in Hawaii “as part of an investigative plan, to work at an off-site location where his activities could be monitored” and his contacts with China could be probed, the department said.
In 2006, Ma “convinced CC #1 to provide the identities of at least two individuals depicted in photographs that were provided to Ma” by Chinese intelligence, it said.
Ma said that the information given, as well as what he provided in 2001, “would be used to injure the United States or to benefit” Chinese authorities, the department said.
Ma worked for the FBI until 2012, and it was unclear from the statement how he was unmasked.
If accepted by the courts, the guilty plea agreement, which ensures that Ma would cooperate with US authorities, provides for a 10-year prison sentence for him which could be handed down on Sept. 11.
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