Former US Intelligence Officer Arrested for Trying to Spy for China
Ron Rockwell Hansen was arrested on Saturday on his way to a Seattle airport for a flight to China. The US Justice Department says he attempted to pass on information and received at least $800,000 for acting as a Chinese agent
IsraelDefense
| 05/06/2018
DIA headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Photo: DIA Public Affairs)
A former officer with the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) named Ron Rockwell Hansen (58) has been arrested after allegedly trying to sell US defense secrets to China.
The FBI took Hansen into custody on Saturday while he was on his way to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to get a connecting flight to China.
According to John Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, Hansen “allegedly attempted to transmit national defense information to the People’s Republic of China’s intelligence service and also allegedly received hundreds of thousands of dollars while illegally acting as an agent of China.”
Hansen faces charges of attempting to gather or deliver national defense information to aid a foreign government, acting as an unregistered foreign agent for China, bulk cash smuggling, structuring monetary transactions and smuggling goods from the United States.
Prosecutors said that Hansen speaks fluent Mandarin-Chinese and Russian. He served as a case officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency while on active military duty from 2000-2006, and later continued that line of work as a civilian employee and a contractor. He also held a top secret clearance for years.
The government said that between 2013 and 2017, he traveled between the two countries attending conferences and provided the information he learned to China’s intelligence service. He was paid via wire transfers, cash and credit cards. He also allegedly improperly sold export-controlled technology.
Ron Rockwell Hansen was arrested on Saturday on his way to a Seattle airport for a flight to China. The US Justice Department says he attempted to pass on information and received at least $800,000 for acting as a Chinese agent
DIA headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Photo: DIA Public Affairs)
A former officer with the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) named Ron Rockwell Hansen (58) has been arrested after allegedly trying to sell US defense secrets to China.
The FBI took Hansen into custody on Saturday while he was on his way to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to get a connecting flight to China.
According to John Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, Hansen “allegedly attempted to transmit national defense information to the People’s Republic of China’s intelligence service and also allegedly received hundreds of thousands of dollars while illegally acting as an agent of China.”
Hansen faces charges of attempting to gather or deliver national defense information to aid a foreign government, acting as an unregistered foreign agent for China, bulk cash smuggling, structuring monetary transactions and smuggling goods from the United States.
Prosecutors said that Hansen speaks fluent Mandarin-Chinese and Russian. He served as a case officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency while on active military duty from 2000-2006, and later continued that line of work as a civilian employee and a contractor. He also held a top secret clearance for years.
The government said that between 2013 and 2017, he traveled between the two countries attending conferences and provided the information he learned to China’s intelligence service. He was paid via wire transfers, cash and credit cards. He also allegedly improperly sold export-controlled technology.
