Jerry Chun Lee; former CIA agent arrested

The Justice Department announced yesterday that they had arrested Jerry Chun Lee, a former CIA agent for “retaining classified information”. He had been a CIA agent from 1994 to 2007. Three years later, the Chinese began dismantling US intelligence-gathering networks by killing or tossing at least 20 agents in prison. The CIA suspected that there was a mole;

According to court documents, in August 2012, Lee and his family left Hong Kong to return to the United States to live in northern Virginia. While traveling back to the United States, Lee and his family had hotel stays in Hawaii and Virginia. During each of the hotel stays, FBI agents conducted court-authorized searches of Lee’s room and luggage, and found that Lee was in unauthorized possession of materials relating to the national defense. Specifically, agents found two small books containing handwritten notes that contained classified information, including but not limited to, true names and phone numbers of assets and covert CIA employees, operational notes from asset meetings, operational meeting locations and locations of covert facilities.

From Business Insider;

Lee left the CIA in 2007 and Beijing began cracking down on the CIA’s network in 2010, The New York Times reported last year. Between 2010-2012, at least 12 CIA sources were killed by Chinese government officials.

The intelligence community couldn’t figure out who had betrayed the agency and the United States, if anyone — some were convinced there was a mole, while others believed that the Chinese had hacked the system by which the agency communicates with its foreign sources, according to The Times.

Lee is now believed to have been that mole. But there are other factors — including basic “sloppy tradecraft,” the Times’ report said — that could have contributed to the massive breach.

According to Heavy, Lee was a naturalized US citizen and that he had served in the Army from 1982-1986.

NBC News wrote about how the FBI suspected Lee years ago;

CIA and FBI officials were mystified and mortified as one after another of their best agents in China were jailed or executed.

It was considered the worst intelligence catastrophe since the 1990s, when Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, formerly of the CIA and the FBI, provided secrets to Moscow for years that led to the deaths of multiple agents. Both men are serving life terms in federal prison.

The Times story described a debate over a suspected mole, a former CIA case officer now living in an Asian country.

An FBI task force launched an investigation and began to focus on Lee, sources tell NBC News. It’s unclear how the FBI lured Lee back to the U.S. but officials say there have been several undercover attempts to incriminate him, and at least one confrontational interview during which he denied being a spy.

NBC News says that investigators think that the Chinese hacked communications between the CIA and their operatives, but they’re also sure that Lee was passing intelligence to the Chinese, but they don’t intend to charge Lee with espionage.

Thanks to Bobo for the tip.

Category: Crime