The Chinese Intelligence Officer who convinced Thomas Zhao to deliver confidential information about the US Army. UU. It seemed to know that the 24 -year -old non -commissioned officer of the US Navy. Uu. He had passion for the stock market.
The agent approached Zhao in a group of negotiation chat of shares in the Chinese Social Network Network Wechat, CBS News learned in interviews with people involved in the case. But chats on investment strategies soon deviated in sensitive areas, including questions about naval exercises in the Pacific and radar facilities designs.
The Zhao case represents a new dimension for Chinese covert activities that counterintelligence officials are calling “virtual espionage.” The practice, in which Chinese intelligence officers are directed to members of the Army and others of great interest in social networks, attract them to correspondence and extract confidential information from them, is a threat on rise, authorities said to CBS News.
“They will direct each stone to try to collect what they can,” CBS News in a rare television interview told CBS News in a rare television interview. “They are certainly trying to point to as many people as they can.”
In the course of two years, a Chinese intelligence officer paid Zhao, an engineer of American citizens and marinas, around $ 15,000 to take photographs and videos of restricted areas at the base of southern California where he worked, revealed the records judicial
With its relatively low range, as well as a low -level security authorization, Zhao may have seemed an unlikely objective. However, Vorndran and other US officials told CBS News that intelligence officers who work for the Chinese government are trrolleting the professional network sites, including LinkedIn, to seduce a variety of members of the US service and others that keep authorizations of authorizations of United States Government Security to become sensitive information.
“In professional network sites, Army members, former Army members, list their curriculum,” said Vorndran. “It exposes your experience. And through that, it makes the orientation by an intelligence service easy to achieve.”
A LinkedIn spokesman did not answer a question about whether Chinese intelligence officers were using the platform to identify potential objectives, but he said in a statement that fraudulent accounts violate the company’s terms of service.
“Our teams use a variety of automated technologies, combined with a team of trained research experts and members of members, to help stop the bad actors and maintain experiences in Professional LinkedIn,” said the spokesman.
The tactic is low risk and high reward, a distinctive seal of the type of “virtual espionage” Porcelain He began to support himself when Covid made more difficult for spies to travel abroad, according to counterintelligence officials.
“The intelligence officer can sit behind his desk in China and communicate with numerous people at the same time,” said Ryan Norris, a special agent of the Criminal Investigation Service of the Marina. “They are reaching as many people as possible and expect to obtain an answer.”
In the last two years, the Federal Police identified a dozen cases and has presented charges against four members of the service recruited by alleged undercover agents of China. Vorndran said that given the difficulty of monitoring this type of scope, he is concerned that the number can be much higher.
“We investigate all who can identify and preach an investigation,” said Vorndran. “Those who do not know are those who worry me and keep me awake.”
A spokesman for the China Embassy denied the knowledge of the Zhao case, and did not address a question about whether their intelligence officers contacted members of the online service service and requested confidential information.
“China expects the United States to promote the so-called ‘Chinese espionage’ and cease The embassy, ”said the embassy spokesman,” said the embassy spokesman. In a statement.
Easy money
In August 2023, the FBI agents and the NCIS descended in the Naval Base of the Ventura County, arrested Zhao and took him to a small room to interrogate. A video of the interrogation, obtained by CBS News, shows Zhao admitting that he sent confidential military information to an individual who met online.
While Zhao said the individual seemed “suspicious”, he doesn’t seem to know he was dealing with a Chinese intelligence officer. And although he considered transmitting photographs of what was working as an easy way to earn money, he did not stop to send classified information.
“When I tried to cut the relationship with him, it’s a bit late,” Zhao said in the interrogation, telling federal agents that he felt “trapped.”
After the interrogation, Zhao was arrested. He later declared himself guilty of bribes and conspiracy charges, and currently meets a 27 -month federal sentence. Prosecutors determined that their actions did not increase at the level of espionage. Even so, Norris said he believes that Zhao’s actions are equivalent to a betrayal.
“He absolutely betrayed his country,” said Norris, who interrogated Zhao during the interrogation. “I think in the last two years I had a relationship that I knew it was disastrous, and I think it was finally caught in what I was doing.”
Tarek Shawky, a Zhao lawyer, said his client was also to some extent a victim of a scam. He said his conversations on social networks revealed that the Chinese intelligence officer sought to build a confidence level before asking for confidential information.
“At a certain point, I think the human condition is that you want to suspend a bit of your best judgment due to that human connection,” Shawky said. “That is what makes it so dangerous.”
In an interview with CBS News, Zhao’s wife, Jianyu Ren, said that her husband acknowledged having made a mistake, but she denied that she once deliberately sold her country.
“That is not him,” Ren said. “If I had known that this person was working for the Chinese government or for anyone in China, I would not have done it.”
Pat Milton contributed to this report.
Jim Axelrod
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