Thu Sep 12 00:51:53 UTC 2024: ## Former CIA Officer Sentenced to 10 Years for Spying for China

**HONOLULU, HAWAII** – A former CIA officer, Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 71, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday for selling US secrets to the Chinese government. Ma, a naturalized US citizen born in Hong Kong, admitted to an undercover FBI agent in 2020 that he had been passing classified information to China.

Ma, who worked for the CIA from 1982 to 1989, later worked for the FBI as a contract linguist. Prosecutors revealed that the FBI hired Ma as a ruse to monitor his activities after learning of his espionage activities.

The indictment states that Ma collaborated with his brother, also a former CIA agent, to provide secrets to Chinese intelligence officers. The two were filmed meeting in Hong Kong, where Ma was seen counting $50,000 in cash for the secrets. Ma’s brother died before he could be prosecuted.

As part of a plea agreement, Ma agreed to cooperate with prosecutors for the rest of his life and to submit to polygraph tests during debriefings.

“Let it be a message to anyone else thinking of doing the same,” said FBI Honolulu Special Agent-in-Charge Steven Merrill. “No matter how long it takes, or how much time passes, you will be brought to justice.”

Ma will serve his 10-year sentence followed by five years of supervised release.

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