Former CIA agent sold US intelligence to China for money and gifts, DOJ officials say
A resident of Hawaii and former CIA agent was arrested after he allegedly stole top secret intelligence from the United States and turned it over to the People’s Republic of China in exchange for thousands of dollars in cash and expensive gifts, according to a release from the Department of Justice.
Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 67, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Hong Kong, started working for the CIA in 1982, where he held a top secret security clearance, the DOJ said. Ma left the CIA in 1989 and moved to Shanghai, China before moving back to Hawaii in 2001.
Ma allegedly began conspiring with his relative, who is also a former CIA agent, in Hong Kong in March 2001, when they provided information to the foreign intelligence service about the CIA’s personnel, operations and methods, according to the DOJ. One of the meetings between Ma and his relative was partially caught on video and Ma is seen receiving and counting $50,000 in cash, the DOJ said.
After Ma moved to Hawaii, he applied to work for the FBI, according to the DOJ. The FBI’s Honolulu Field Office hired Ma as a contract linguist and he reviewed and translated Chinese language documents in 2004.
Over the next six years, Ma copied, photographed and stole documents that were classified with markings such as “SECRET,” and frequently brought them to China with the intent to provide them to “his handlers,” the DOJ said. Ma would often come back to the U.S. with thousands of dollars in cash and expensive gifts, including a new set of golf clubs, according to the DOJ.
An employee of the FBI working undercover as a representative of China’s intelligence service met with Ma twice in spring 2019, the DOJ said. Ma accepted $2,000 in cash from the undercover agent as a “small token of appreciation” for his assistance, according to the DOJ.
Ma met with an undercover agent on Aug. 12, 2020 and accepted more money for his espionage, the DOJ said. During that meeting, Ma expressed willingness to continue to help the Chinese government and said he “wanted ‘the motherland’ to succeed,” according to the DOJ.
Ma was arrested on Aug. 14.
“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,” John Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, said in the release. “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.”
Ma is scheduled to make his initial appearance Tuesday before a federal judge in Hawaii. He is charged with conspiracy to communicate national defense information to aid a foreign government and faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment if convicted, the DOJ said.
