Ex-CIA agent, suspected of spying for China, is arrested in US ‘with top-secret notes’
Hong Kong resident Jerry Chun Shing Lee is accused of illicitly carrying notebooks listing the names of CIA spies and helping China identify informants
A former Central Intelligence Agency officer who now lives in Hong Kong was arrested at a US airport on Monday night in connection with charges that he illegally retained highly classified information, the US Justice Department said Tuesday.
Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a US citizen, used to maintain a top-secret clearance and began working for the CIA in 1994.
The Justice Department said that in 2012, FBI agents searched his hotel rooms during trips to Virginia and Hawaii. They discovered he had two small books containing handwritten information on details such as the true names and numbers of spy recruits and covert CIA employees.
The New York Times reported that the Justice Department suspected Lee “of helping China identify the agency’s informants”.
He was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
The case is being prosecuted by the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. But Lee made his first court appearance on Tuesday before a federal magistrate judge in Brooklyn. The judge ordered Lee held without bail.
