US Navy sailor who gave China military information sentenced to 27 months in prison
- Wenheng Zhao, 26, pleaded guilty in October to accepting nearly US$15,000 for providing details of large-scale Indo-Pacific military exercises
- A second sailor was arrested on similar charges in August, and the US Justice Department calls both cases proof of Beijing’s espionage operations on American soil
A federal district court in California sentenced a former US Navy sailor on Monday to 27 months in prison for taking thousands of dollars in bribes and providing Chinese intelligence agencies with “controlled and classified” details of large-scale US military exercises in the Indo-Pacific region, the US Department of Justice said.
In October, Wenheng Zhao, also known as Thomas Zhao, pleaded guilty to conspiring with a foreign adversary and accepting bribes. Prosecutors said he had been given nearly US$15,000 in 14 separate payments.
“Zhao betrayed his country and disgraced himself when he accepted bribes from an intelligence officer” with China, United States Attorney Martin Estrada said in a Justice Department release.
Zhao, 26, of Monterey Park, California, who was arrested in August, worked as a petty officer at a US naval base in Ventura County, California. He was born in China, immigrated to the US in 2009, became a naturalised citizen in 2012 and enlisted in the US Navy in 2017.
According to court filings, Zhao “collected” and “transmitted” photographs and videos between August 2021 and May 2023 that included specific locations and timing of naval movements, along with information of logistics and operational support.
The indictment also said that the stolen material included diagrams and blueprints for a radar system installed on a US military base in Okinawa, Japan.