File Photo. Asif Hassan—AFP
Naturalized U.S. citizen says he was collecting sensitive information and passing it onto Chinese officials for financial rewards.
A 46-year-old FBI electronics technician pled guilty in New York on Monday to acting as an agent of China and passing along sensitive information to a Chinese government official.
Kun Shan Chun, also known as Joey Chun, faces up to 10 years behind bars when sentenced by a federal judge on Dec. 2, U.S. prosecutors said. He was arrested in March, having worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation for nine years and getting top-secret security clearance in 1998.
He confessed to collecting sensitive information and allowing it to be passed onto a Chinese official in exchange for financial reward and concealing that relationship from the FBI.
Information that he disclosed included the identity and potential travel patterns of an FBI agent, information about the internal structure of the bureau and surveillance technologies used by the FBI, U.S. officials said.
Chun, who was born in China and became a naturalized U.S. citizen after moving to America, pled guilty to one count in court on Monday. Manhattan’s top prosecutor, Preet Bharara, said the crime “betrays our nation and threatens our security.”
“When the perpetrator is an FBI employee, like Kun Shan Chun, the threat is all the more serious and the betrayal all the more duplicitous,” he said.