US 'Double Agent' Charged with Spying for China

The US Defense Intelligence Agency Officer has been arrested on charges of selling classified country information to China in exchange for money, AFP reports.

The US Justice Department said Ron Rockwell Hansen, 58, had regular secret meetings with Chinese intelligence agents, and used cellphones provided him by Chinese sources and retained classified information to which he was not supposed to have access.

He was taken into custody on Saturday while on his way to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington State to board a flight to China, carrying classified information.

Based out of a commercial office in Beijing, Hansen made contacts with Chinese intelligence, and over several years tried to pitch himself to the DIA and FBI as a double agent who would act ultimately for the United States, the indictment said.

During and after that time, he received more than $800,000 in payments from China, often cash that he hand-carried to the United States.

By early this year, the FBI learned that Hansen was seeking from American colleagues information on the US position on North and South Korea, as well as its military operations plan against China, to be sold to his Chinese contacts.

"His alleged actions are a betrayal of our nation's security and the American people and are an affront to his former intelligence community colleagues," said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers.

This is the second incident of arrest of American officials this year on charges of spying for Beijing. Early this year, former CIA agent Jerry Chun Shing Lee was indicted for the similar charges.