CNN
 — 

A former CIA officer arrested for espionage has been sentenced to 10 years in federal jail for conspiring to offer categorized info to Chinese language intelligence officers, based on the US Division of Justice.

Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 71, of Honolulu, had organized for himself and a relative, who additionally beforehand labored for the CIA, to fulfill with Chinese language safety officers in Hong Kong and supply categorized materials in change for $50,000, based on his plea settlement. Ma pleaded responsible in Might.

Ma was later the goal of an FBI undercover operation after making use of to work as a linguist on the bureau’s Honolulu area workplace.

“The FBI, conscious of Ma’s ties to PRC (Folks’s Republic of China) intelligence, employed Ma, as a part of an investigative plan, to work at an off-site location the place his actions might be monitored and his contacts with the PRC investigated,” the DOJ mentioned in a information launch.

Through the course of his monitored employment with the FBI, Ma allegedly took a digital digital camera into the FBI workplace to {photograph} delicate paperwork that he would then take to his handlers in China.

Ma’s legal professional, Salina Kanai, instructed CNN Thursday that “the decide needed to weigh a bunch of mitigating and aggravating elements, many distinctive to Mr. Ma’s case,” including: “We’re glad that in contemplating so many variables, the courtroom got here to the identical conclusion that the federal government and protection did – that ten years of imprisonment is the simply sentence for my shopper.”

The Justice Division mentioned that “underneath the phrases of the plea settlement, Ma should cooperate with america for the remainder of his life, together with by submitting to debriefings by U.S. authorities businesses,” and famous he has already been cooperative throughout a number of interviews.