US Spy Charged With Selling Secrets To China

An official from the US Defence Intelligence Agency has been charged with selling secrets to China in exchange for at least US$800,000.

The Justice Department said Ron Rockwell Hansen, 58, of Syracuse, Utah, was taken into custody on Saturday while on his way to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington state to board a flight to China, carrying classified information.

It was just the latest in a series of arrests of American officials on charges of spying for Beijing. Hansen worked in signals intelligence in the army before retiring. Fluent in Mandarin and Russian, he was recruited in 2006 to work for the DIA as a case officer, someone who recruits and manages foreign intelligence assets.

Based out of a commercial office in Beijing, Hansen made contacts with Chinese intelligence, and over several years tried to pitch himself to the DIA and FBI as a double agent who would act ultimately for the Untied States, the indictment said.

Investigators found that he had regular meetings with Chinese intelligence agents that he never reported, used cellphones provided him by Chinese sources and retained classified information to which he was not supposed to have access.

They also discovered that Hansen was in deep financial trouble from 2013 to 2016, with debts of several hundred thousand dollars.

During and after that time, he received more than $800,000 in payments from China, often cash that he hand-carried to the United States, that he could not explain.

By early this year, the FBI learned that Hansen was seeking from American colleagues information on the US position on North and South Korea, as well as its military operations plan against China, to be sold to his Chinese contacts. (AFP)