Two spies jailed for selling Chinese military secrets overseas
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 10 March, 2015, 11:39am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 11 March, 2015, 5:43am
Nectar Gan [email protected]
China's first aircraft carrier, Liaoning, docked at Dalian. One of the men convicted of selling state secrets took hundreds of pictures of the vessel and sent them to his employer overseas. Photo: Reuters
Two men have been jailed in northern China for taking photographs of military projects and equipment and selling them overseas, according to a state-run newspaper report.
The men separately provided hundreds of photographs to their foreign contacts, the Dalian Daily reported, without saying who bought the infor mation.
The National Security Agency in Dalian, Liaoning province, arrested the men last year and accused them of leaking state secrets, the report said.
Liaoning is a defence manufacturing centre in China and home to many military research and construction projects, including fighter aircraft, missile destroyers, nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers.
One of the men, described only by his family name Han, was approached on social media last March by a foreigner who claimed to be a journalist.
The 30-year-old was asked to take photos of work near a military project, for which he was paid 11,600 yuan (HK$14,500).
The man entered restricted zones and took pictures with his phone and sent them abroad on the internet. He was also told to attend a conference on defence technology programmes in Beijing in July and record meetings and take photographs.
By the time he was arrested in August, he had taken several hundred sensitive photographs in return for more than 90,000 yuan, the report said.
The other man, 23, identified only by his family name Zhang, was also approached by someone who claimed to be the editor of a foreign magazine, the Dalian Daily reported.
He was told to buy a professional-standard camera and take photographs of China's first aircraft carrier Liaoning.
The man later worked fulltime for the foreigner for higher pay. He even became employed by one military enterprise to gather better information.
When he was arrested in August, Zhang had passed on more than 500 photographs of the Liaoning and other defence projects in return for more than 40,000 yuan.
Han was jailed for eight years and Zhang for six.
The government passed a counter-espionage law last year to tighten state security. It allows authorities to seize any property "linked to activities deemed harmful to the state".
