On Tuesday, January 16th the Justice Department arrested a former C.I.A. officer who was suspected of aiding in identifying the agency’s informants to the Chinese government.
Why should you care?
- Many of the informants were killed in a systematic dismantling of the C.I.A.’s spy network in the Communist nation
- Fox News reported that 18 to 20 key C.I.A. sources in China were killed
- They were operating covertly in China beginning in 2010
- It was considered one of the worst intelligence failures in recent years, according to several intelligence officials
- This was revolving around an intense FBI investigation that began in 2012 after the C.I.A. began losing its informants in China
- The former agent arrested was Jerry Chun Shing Lee, who is 53 years old
- According to the N.Y. Times, Lee was at the center of a mole hunt
- He was apprehended at Kennedy International Airport on unlawful retention of national defense information
- Lee left the C.I.A. in 2007
- He was living in Hong Kong
- Lee returned to the United States with his family in 2012
- B.I. agents investigated him, searched his luggage during a pair of hotel stays, and found two books with handwritten notes that contained classified information
- He had written down details about meetings between C.I.A. informants and undercover agents, as well as their real names and phone numbers
- Intelligence officials believed that he had betrayed the United States
- Others thought the Chinese Government had hacked the C.I.A.’s covert communications used to talk to foreign sources of information
Adrian Slade Show 