A former CIA officer has pleaded guilty to conspiring to pass US defense and intelligence secrets to China after his Chinese handlers promised he would be financially set for life, the US Justice Department said on Wednesday.

Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 54, was approached by two Chinese intelligence officers in 2010 who offered to pay him $100,000 (€89,300) and to take care of him "for life" if he provided them with information he had acquired as a CIA officer, according to a Justice Department statement.

The statement said Lee had created thumb drives containing secret information about CIA activities and the location and time frame of a sensitive operation.

Uncertain if China received intelligence

The statement of facts filed in court does not mention whether Lee actually succeeded in delivering the intelligence to China.

Whether he delivered secrets to the Chinese "is a matter that will come out to some extent in sentencing," said US District Judge T.S. Ellis III. Sentencing has been set for August 23.

Lee, who is a naturalized US citizen from Hong Kong, could receive life in prison. But his plea deal sets federal sentencing guidelines at roughly 18 to 27 years depending on the final calculation. Ellis is free to go above or below the guidelines if he chooses.

G. Zachary Terwilliger, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, which is prosecuting the case, said in a statement: "Lee sold out his country, conspired to become a spy for a foreign government, and then repeatedly lied to investigators about his conduct."

Chinese agents assigned tasks

Lee served in the CIA as an overseas case officer from 1994 through to 2007, where his primary duty as a case officer was to "recruit clandestine human intelligence sources," the indictment said.

He then moved to Hong Kong where he got a job with a large tobacco company but was fired in 2009 and stopped receiving income in 2010.

It was that year when Lee met with the Chinese intelligence officers.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars were subsequently paid into Lee's personal bank account between 2010 and 2013, prosecutors say.

According to the indictment, Lee's Chinese contacts delivered more than 20 envelopes between 2010 and 2011 detailing tasks they wanted him to complete, most of which asked him to reveal sensitive information.

It also states that Lee traveled to mainland China in July 2012.

The next month, when Lee was on a trip from Hong Kong to the US, authorities carried out a search warrant in a Honolulu hotel room and found secret information in his luggage, including the real names of CIA assets.

Court records show that Lee was under investigation for more than five years leading up to his arrest in January 2018.

Third spying case in a year

In March, a former US Defense Intelligence Agency officer, Ron Rockwell Hansen, pleaded guilty of attempting to transmit classified information to China and receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars while acting as an agent for Beijing.

Last June, another former CIA case officer, Kevin Mallory, was convicted on espionage charges for passing classified documents to China.

Last month, the Justice Department said a former engineer and a Chinese businessman had been charged with economic espionage and conspiring to steal trade secrets from General Electric Co in a scheme for which the Chinese government provided "financial and other support."

law/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)

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