by WorldTribune Staff, May 9, 2018
The U.S. Department of Justice on May 8 announced it indicted a former CIA agent on charges of spying for China.
Jerry Chun Shing Lee was charged with one count of conspiracy to gather or deliver national defense information to aid a foreign government, and two counts of unlawfully retaining documents related to national defense.
Lee, 53, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was at the time living in Hong Kong, “was given information requests by the Chinese agents and hid the cash payments he received,” according to a report by AFP.
Lee’s case is likely linked to the collapse of the CIA’s China network that began in 2010.
The New York Times reported last year that starting in 2010, to the end of 2012, the Chinese killed “at least a dozen” sources the CIA had inside China and imprisoned six or more others.
Lee was arrested in January. According to a warrant made public at the time, FBI agents had discovered in Lee’s luggage, during a court-authorized search in 2012, notebooks with the names, contacts and other details on covert CIA employees and informants.
In voluntary interviews with FBI agents in 2012, Lee admitted preparing a classified document for Chinese agents.
Officials have not revealed why it took so long to bring charges against Lee, nor detailed what materials he gave to the Chinese agents, the AFP report said.
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