Kill CIA Informant, China Cripples US Spying Operation

News Portals: Sunday May, 21, 2017 - 16:28 pm China managed to dismantle the espionage action carried out by the CIA.

WASHINGTON - The Chinese government systematically dismantled CIA espionage operations in the country beginning in 2010. They killed or imprisoned more than a dozen informers for two years and paralyzed intelligence gatherings there years later.

As quoted from the New York Times on Sunday (21/05/2017), according to officials and former US officials (USA), from the last weeks of 2010 until the end of 2012, China killed at least a dozen CIA informants. In addition, there are still put in prison. All told, China killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 CIA informants.

Officials and former US officials described this intelligence error as one of the worst in decades. Assessing the fallout of a leaked espionage operation can be difficult, but the incident is considered very destructive. The number of US assets lost in China rivals those lost in the Soviet Union and Russia during the betrayals of Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen. The two men were formerly CIA And FBI agents, who leaked intelligence operations to Moscow for years.

This incident also made the FBI and the CIA conduct a joint investigation. However, investigators were divided on the cause. Some believe there are people in the CIA who have betrayed the US. The conjecture is conical to a former CIA agent who has worked in a division that oversees China. They believe that he is most likely responsible for this incident. But the effort to gather enough evidence to arrest him failed, and now he lives in another country in Asia.

Another allegation is that China managed to undermine the CIA's secret communications system that used to make contact with its foreign sources. Others thought that the leak was the result of a sloppy spy job including traveling the same route to the same meeting point or meeting a source at a restaurant where the Chinese planted a listener device

Years later, the debate remained unresolved. The CIA has been trying to rebuild the spy network in China. An expensive and time-consuming undertaking ever undertaken by the former head of the East Asian Division.

China has been very aggressive in espionage in recent years, beyond the hacking of Personnel Office Management records by 2015. Last year, an FBI employee was found guilty of working as a Chinese espionage agent for many years. He provides sensitive technology information to Beijing in exchange for cash, luxury hotel rooms during travel and foreign prostitutes.

In March, prosecutors announced the arrest of State Department employee Candace Marie Claiborne, who was accused of lying to investigators about her contacts with Chinese officials. According to criminal reports against Claiborne, who pleaded not guilty, Chinese agents sent money to his bank account and gave him a gift that included iPhones, laptops and tuition at the Chinese fashion school. In addition, according to the report, he received a complete apartment and an allowance.