Former CIA agent sentenced to 10 years in prison for accepting bribes from Chinese regime in exchange for top security secrets

A former CIA agent was sentenced to ten years in prison and five years of supervised release for passing top security secrets to the Chinese Communist regime in exchange for cash.

According to a Justice Department release, former spy Alexander Yuk Ching Ma conspired to collect and deliver national Defense information to the Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB) for years.

According to court documents, Ma worked for the CIA from 1982 to 1989 and conspired with a now-deceased relative, identified as Co-Conspirator Number One, who also worked for the CIA from 1967 to 1983.

"As CIA officers, both men held Top Secret security clearances that granted them access to sensitive and classified CIA information, and both signed nondisclosure agreements," the DOJ revealed.

In a plea agreement, Ma admitted that in March 2001, more than a decade after he resigned from the CIA, he was contacted by SSSB intelligence officers, who asked him to convince Co-Conspirator Number One to arrange a meeting between them the SSSB.

The meeting was arranged and the two men met with SSSB intelligence officers in a Hong Kong hotel room for three days.

During the meetings, Co-Conspirator Number One delivered a significant volume of classified national Defense information to the SSSB in exchange for $50,000 in cash.

At that point, Ma and his accomplice agreed to continue aiding the Chinese spy agency.

Two years later, in 2003, while living in Hawaii, he applied for a job as a linguist at the FBI's Honolulu Field Office.

The security agency, aware of Ma's ties to Chinese intelligence, hired him to monitor him and investigate his activities and contacts with the communist regime. The CIA enforcer worked part-time in an external office for the FBI for more than eight years, from August 2004 to October 2012.

In February 2006, Ma was again approached by the SSSB to ask his accomplice to identify four individuals of interest to the Chinese regime from some photographs. Co-Conspirator Number One provided details about at least two of those people, whose identities are classified.

"Ma confessed that he knowingly and willfully conspired with CC #1 and SSSB intelligence officers to communicate and transmit information that he knew would be used to injure the United States or to advantage the PRC," the DOJ reviewed.

In court documents the U.S. government noted that Ma was convicted of multiple crimes, including a multi-year conspiracy to commit espionage and a serious national security violation that caused the government to expend significant investigative resources.

The terms of conviction state that, in addition to spending ten years in prison and another five years on supervised release, Ma will cooperate with U.S. authorities for the rest of his life.