Alexander Yuk Chin Ma, 71, is from Hong Kong.
A former CIA officer pleaded guilty Friday to spying for China, the Department of Justice announced.
Alexander Yuk Chin Ma, 71, a Hong Kong-born naturalized US citizen, admitted to providing “large amounts of classified US defense information” to Chinese authorities in 2001 despite not being employed by the CIA for 12 years.
According to the Justice Department statement, the meeting between Ma and representatives of the Shanghai National Security Bureau was initiated by another former CIA officer, a Shanghai-born, naturalized U.S. relative of Ma, whom the Justice Department statement identified as “Co-conspirator No. 1.”
At the end of the third day of meetings at a Hong Kong hotel, Chinese “agents handed CC1 $50,000 in cash, which Mr. Ma counted,” the statement said.
“Ma and CC1 also agreed at the time to continue providing support to China’s intelligence services.”
In 2003, Ma was hired as a linguist by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Hawaii, “working at an off-site location that allowed him to monitor his activities as part of an investigative program” and to investigate his contacts with China.
In 2006, Ma “persuaded CC1 to reveal the identities of at least two individuals appearing in photographs provided to Ma by Chinese intelligence.”
Ma confessed that the information he provided this time, and that in 2001, “will be used to harm the United States or benefit Chinese authorities.”
Marr worked for the FBI until 2012, but it is unclear from the statement how his identity was revealed.
If the court accepts this, Ma could be sentenced to 10 years in prison under a guilty plea agreement in which he promises to cooperate with U.S. authorities, and the verdict could be handed down as soon as September 11.
