10 years for spy recruited online
Print Edition
A MAN has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for leaking Chinese military documents and photographs to a foreign spy agency, according to national security agencies in south China’s Guangdong Province.
The man, surnamed Li, had been approached by a foreign intelligence agent via a popular social media platform and had ordered and provided internal military publications for the spy agency for some time, they said.
Xinhua news agency said the online approach had come from “a foreign spy” with the username “Fei Ge” — “flying brother” in Chinese — who had pretended to be a woman.
Over a month, Li, from Shantou in Guangdong, and Fei Ge, who the People’s Daily newspaper described as a “spy from outside China’s borders,” became friends.
Fei Ge then revealed he was male and told Li he would pay for him to subscribe to military publications via China’s National Library which could only be ordered by professionals, the newspaper said.
Li also leaked a large amount of information on the development of military bases and pictures of military gear, the report said.
He made regular field trips to observe important military bases and took photos of massive military movements and army equipment.
He leaked 13 highly classified documents, which featured in the second highest tier in the country’s three-tier system for ranking military secrets, and 10 from the bottom tier.
“Since 2007, Fei Ge has lured 12 people in Guangdong and 40 others in more than 20 provincial regions to provide military information through online bookstores and military enthusiast websites,” Xinhua said.
The People’s Daily report did not say which country Fe Ge worked for, but said Li had passed information to “foreign intelligence agencies,” citing a source at national security agencies in Guangdong.
The report didn’t say whether Fei Ge had been caught.
There was no indication how Li obtained the documents and Xinhua did not specify any court that convicted and sentenced him.
National security officials in Guangdong urged citizens to report any people suspected of being a threat to national security.
China’s military has warned it faces a “severe and complex” task in maintaining intelligence, especially given the widespread use of the Internet and mobile communications.
Last month, two foreigners tried to steal materials relating to genetically modified rice growing in test field at Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei Province.
The Ministry of Agricultural has issued a notice alerting agricultural scientific institutes to strengthen security.
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