Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, Espionage Conspiracy, Hawaii 2024

Former CIA Officer Sentenced to 10 Years for Espionage Conspiracy in Honolulu, HI

Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 71, of Honolulu, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiring to gather and deliver national defense information to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Ma was arrested in August 2020, after admitting to an undercover FBI employee that he had facilitated the provision of classified information to intelligence officers employed by the PRC’s Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB).

According to court documents, Ma worked for the CIA from 1982 until 1989. His blood relative, identified as co-conspirator #1 or CC #1 in court documents, who is deceased, also worked for the CIA from 1967 until 1983. As CIA officers, both men held Top Secret security clearances that granted them access to sensitive and classified CIA information, and both signed nondisclosure agreements.

In March 2001, over a decade after he resigned from the CIA, Ma was contacted by SSSB intelligence officers, who asked Ma to arrange a meeting between CC #1 and the SSSB. Ma convinced CC #1 to agree, and both Ma and CC #1 met with SSSB intelligence officers in a Hong Kong hotel room for three days. During the meetings, CC #1 provided the SSSB with a large volume of classified U.S. national defense information in return for $50,000 in cash. Ma and CC #1 also agreed to continue to assist the SSSB.

Ma has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release. Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, U.S. Attorney Clare E. Connors for the District of Hawaii and Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells of the FBI’s National Security Branch made the announcement.

The FBI’s Honolulu and Los Angeles Field Offices investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ken Sorenson and Craig Nolan for the District of Hawaii, and Trial Attorneys Scott Claffee and Leslie Esbrook of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section prosecuted the case.

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