A former CIA officer and contract linguist for the FBI accused of spying for China for at least a decade pleaded guilty on Friday in a federal courtroom in Honolulu.
Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 72, has been in custody since his arrest in August 2020. The Justice Department revealed in a court filing that it had amassed “a war chest of damning evidence” against him, including an hour-long video from 2001. The video shows Ma and an older relative — also a former CIA officer — providing classified information to intelligence officers with China’s Ministry of State Security. The video also depicts Ma counting $50,000 received from the Chinese agents for his services, prosecutors said.
During a sting operation, Ma accepted thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for his past espionage activities and told an undercover FBI agent posing as a Chinese intelligence officer that he wanted to see the “motherland” succeed, according to prosecutors.
The secrets Ma was accused of providing included information about CIA sources and assets, international operations, secure communication practices, and operational tradecraft, as detailed in the charging documents.
As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Ma pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to gather or deliver national defense information to a foreign government. The plea deal calls for a 10-year sentence, but a judge will have the final say at Ma’s sentencing, scheduled for September 11. Without the deal, he faced life in prison.