Washington DC
Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, a former CIA officer, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for spying for the Chinese government. The 71-year-old Honolulu resident was arrested in August 2020 after admitting to an undercover FBI agent that he sold U.S. secrets to China, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
Ma confessed to providing classified information to intelligence officers from China’s Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB). In addition to his prison term, he will face five years of supervised release, as stated by Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, U.S. Attorney Clare E. Connors for the District of Hawaii, and FBI Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells.
Court documents reveal that Ma, a U.S. citizen born in Hong Kong, worked for the CIA from 1982 to 1989. He collaborated with a relative, who also served in the CIA from 1967 until 1983. Both held top-secret security clearances and had access to sensitive information.
According to his plea agreement, in 2001, over a decade after leaving the CIA, Ma was contacted by SSSB officers, who requested a meeting with his relative. Over three days in a Hong Kong hotel, his relative shared a large amount of classified U.S. information in exchange for $50,000.
