Former CIA officer pleads guilty in Honolulu courtroom of spying for China

A former CIA officer accused of spying for China pled guilty on Friday in a courtroom in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 72, was arrested back in 2020 and was accused of spying for China for at least ten years. 

The Justice Department accused him of giving classified information to officers with China’s Ministry of State Security back in 2001.

According to prosecutors, there is a sting operation video showing Ma counting $50,000 given to him by an undercover FBI agent posing as a Chinese intelligence officer in exchange for his services. Ma tells the FBI agent that he wanted to see the “motherland” succeed, according to prosecutors.

He was accused of sharing CIA sources, assets and information on operational tradecraft, according to NBC News.

Ma is originally from Hong Kong but became a U.S. citizen in 1975 and joined the CIA in 1982. He resigned from the agency in 1989. 

Ma lived and worked in China and returned to Hawaii in 2001. He was hired as a contract linguist in the FBI’s Honolulu field office in 2004 as a "ruse" to watch him and his Chinese contacts. Prosecutors say that over the next six years, he regularly stole and copied classified documents. 

He pled guilty to the allegations and admitted that he was giving Chinese intelligence officials information that could harm the U.S. The plea deal calls for a 10-year sentence, pending approval by the judge on September 11. Without the plea deal, Ma was facing life in prison.