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Former CIA agent arrested in Honolulu, charged with helping China on US
Hawaii News Now ^ | August 17, 2020 | HNN Staff

Posted on 08/17/2020 4:36:19 PM PDT by Jyotishi

Former CIA operative arrested in Honolulu, charged with helping China spy on U.S. [Video]

HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) -- A Honolulu resident who spent years working for the Central Intelligence Agency and as a contractor for the Federal Bureau of Investigation was charged Monday with spying on the U,S, and selling state secrets to China.

Authorities say 67-year-old Alexander Yuk Ching Ma -- who moved to Honolulu from Hong Kong in 1968 and began his CIA career in 1982 -- had become ‘a compromised asset’ of the Chinese Ministry of State Security by at least early 2001.

In a press conference Monday morning, the U.S. District Attorney for Hawaii, Kenji Price, said Ma’s illicit actions were a betrayal of the United States.

“Those who feed classified information to the People’s Republic of China will not escape the long arm of the law,” Price said.

While working for the CIA, according to court documents unsealed Monday, Ma held top secret clearance while assigned, for at least part of the time, to the East Asia and Pacific regions.

The designation was important, prosecutors say, because it allowed Ma to become intimately familiar with matters relating to CIA training procedures, communications protocols and the ‘details of clandestine tradecraft’ that the agency employs to avoid detection by other government intelligence services.

He resigned from the CIA in 1989, court documents showed.

In March 2001, Ma is alleged to have conducted a series of at least five meetings with Chinese intelligence officials in Hong Kong -- meetings which, according to court documents, were recorded and later reviewed by the FBI.

During those meetings, Ma is believed to have ‘voluntarily and knowingly’ conveyed to Chinese intelligence agents a variety of material information about CIA protocols, including information about human assets and CIA officer identities.

Recordings of the March 2001 meetings that were obtained by the FBI show Chinese officials paying Ma and another co-conspirator $50,000 in U.S. currency.

The co-conspirator, who is not identified in the court documents, is currently suffering from an ‘advanced and debilitating cognitive disease’ and is not sought for arrest at this time because of those medical issues.

Ma’s alleged espionage continued after he was hired as a Chinese linguist contractor for the FBI in 2004, court documents claim.

Among other crimes during his tenure with the FBI, Ma is accused of using an FBI computer to burn documents about a guided missile system onto a CD and using a digital camera to photograph classified documents.

Early last year, the FBI conducted an operation against Ma in which an undercover agent posed as a Chinese intelligence agent during a meeting at Ma’s Honolulu business office.

The undercover agent possessed video of the March 2001 meeting in Hong Kong, which helped convince Ma of his supposed identity. The agent told Ma that he had been tasked by the Chinese government to investigate ‘how Ma had been treated, including the amount he had been compensated, by certain MSS officers.'

Satisfied with the undercover agent’s presumed identity, Ma accepted $2,000 in cash as an acknowledgement of his work on behalf of China, according to court documents.

During at least one meeting, Ma is alleged to have told the undercover agent that he was willing to continue to help the Chinese government -- During the FBI’s investigation of Ma, he is alleged to have told an undercover agent that he wanted “the motherland” to succeed.

Court documents unsealed in espionage case against Hawaii resident by HNN on Scribd:

https://www.scribd.com/document/472759512/Court-documents-unsealed-in-espionage-case-against-Hawaii-resident


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; US: Hawaii
KEYWORDS: 1982; 200103; 2004; 2009; alexanderma; biden; china; cia; espionage; fbi; fbilinguist; hawaii; hongkong; humanassets; linguist; ma; missiles; missilesystem; mss; spies; spooks
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To: null and void

Nobody’s going to face anything. Looters don’t get prosecuted. Murderers of two women in Westchester are now released. The thug who put a gun up against a five year old boy’s head will not get the death penalty. Hilary, Huma and Weiner are probably sunning in Martha’s Vineyard.


21 posted on 08/17/2020 6:11:20 PM PDT by ladyjane
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To: Lurkinanloomin

Kind of weird that the founders would make Chinese tourist babies eligible to be President....../s
= = = = = = = = =
Well they did ‘build’ the railroad...<: <: <:

BUT FDR still gets the blame for the influx of Mexican and other Central/South American types.

He locked up ALL the Japanese gardeners/landscapers so some smart arse figured the Mexicans would do as replacements then the Central/South Americans were needed to fill the void for peons/laborers in Mexico.

Just a vicious cycle/circle


22 posted on 08/17/2020 6:13:41 PM PDT by xrmusn (6/98"HRC is the Grandmother that lures Hansel & Gretel to the pot")
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To: Jyotishi

“Those who feed classified information to the People’s Republic of China will not escape the long arm of the law,”

BWAHAHAHA!!!


23 posted on 08/17/2020 6:33:38 PM PDT by dljordan
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To: Jyotishi

“Ma kept in touch with his Chinese contacts as he applied for an FBI position in 2004. Over the next six years, Ma allegedly downloaded, collected or otherwise photographed sensitive information to pass along to China until he stopped work for the FBI in 2010.

Ma was reportedly caught after the FBI began a sting operation in January of 2019. The FBI had reportedly held suspicions about Ma for years but it is not clear as to why the FBI waited as long as it had to investigate Ma.”
_________________________

Ma was working for the FBI when he again began spying so he wasn’t just ex-CIA...he was current FBI


24 posted on 08/17/2020 7:16:02 PM PDT by terart
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To: shelterguy

Spot on! Is Vannity still on tv?


25 posted on 08/17/2020 11:03:54 PM PDT by Cobra64 (Common sense isnÂ’t common anymore.)
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To: Jyotishi

“While working for the CIA, “

GWB
O-Kenyon


26 posted on 08/17/2020 11:15:47 PM PDT by Varsity Flight (QE 2020. All Quiet on the Western Front)
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To: Jyotishi

Hang him.


27 posted on 08/18/2020 1:03:08 AM PDT by GOPJ (Want to live in a 3rd world hellhole? MOVE to one. DO NOT ELECT DEMOCRATS TO CREATE ONE HERE)
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To: null and void

How many in the DNC, and former Justice Dept./FBI and other agencies legally ought to be facing the same rope?


28 posted on 08/18/2020 3:56:21 PM PDT by TheBattman (Democrats-Progressives-Marxists-Socialists - redundant labels.)
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To: Jyotishi; Fedora

The uncharged coconspirator with the “advanced and debilitating cognitive disease” wouldn’t be Biden, would it?

;-)


29 posted on 10/25/2020 7:41:55 AM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: piasa
I wonder if he was linked to Jerry Chun Shing Lee.
30 posted on 10/25/2020 7:52:24 PM PDT by Fedora
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