A 71-year-old former CIA officer and FBI contract linguist has faced the possibility of a decade in prison after striking a plea deal with federal prosecutors. Alexander Yuk Ching Ma pleaded guilty to conspiracy to gather or deliver national defense information to a foreign government in exchange for an agreed-upon 10-year prison term. Ma, who has been in custody since his arrest in 2020, expressed remorse in a letter to Chief U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu before his sentencing. The plea deal also mandates that Ma undergo polygraph tests upon the U.S. government’s request for the remainder of his life.
Had Ma not agreed to the plea deal, he could have faced a potential life sentence behind bars. Born in Hong Kong, Ma became a U.S. citizen in 1975 after moving to Honolulu in 1968. He began his career with the CIA in 1982, where he held a top-secret security clearance before resigning in 1989. Subsequently, Ma lived in Shanghai, China, before returning to Hawaii in 2001, where he collaborated with Chinese intelligence officers at their request to introduce them to his older brother, a former CIA case officer.
During a meeting in Hong Kong in 2001, Ma’s brother provided classified information to Chinese intelligence officers in exchange for $50,000, an exchange captured on video showing Ma counting the money. Ma later worked as a contract linguist for the FBI in Honolulu, where he continued his espionage activities by copying, photographing, and stealing classified documents over six years. He frequently traveled to China and returned with large sums of money and expensive gifts, such as golf clubs.
In a sting operation, Ma accepted cash for past espionage activities and expressed his desire to see China succeed to an undercover FBI agent posing as a Chinese intelligence officer. Despite his actions, Ma expressed regret in his letter to the judge, citing his late brother’s influence and his reluctance to report the crime due to his brother’s Alzheimer’s disease. The plea agreement also requires Ma to cooperate with the U.S. government, providing additional details about his case and undergoing polygraph tests for life. Prosecutors noted Ma’s cooperation in providing substantial information during multiple sessions following his guilty plea.
