Former US intelligence officer sentenced to 10 years for spying for China after $300K-a-year offer

By Caitlin Yilek

A former intelligence officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday for spying on behalf of China.
Ron Rockwell Hansen, 60, pleaded guilty in March to attempting to steal and deliver military secrets to the Chinese government. 

Though his plea deal called for a 15-year prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Dee Benson decreased the sentence in light of Hansen’s cooperation with the government.
Hansen, who held a top secret clearance for several years and had a background in signals and human intelligence, was approached by Chinese intelligence agents in early 2014 who offered him more than $300,000 per year in exchange for information he collected at industry conferences, according to the criminal complaint.
Hansen’s case fits a recent trend of China recruiting former U.S. intelligence officers, particularly those struggling financially, to pass along government secrets. 

The sentencing also comes amid the U.S. increasingly sounding the alarm on China’s espionage abilities through state- and private- owned companies and through students and scientists.
“There simply are no words to accurately and fully express the depth of regret I have for my decisions and actions. I am so sorry,” Hansen said in Salt Lake City courtroom. 

“I would give anything to go back and change this.”

Hansen, fluent in Mandarin and Russian, retired from the U.S. Army in 2006 and was hired by the Defense Intelligence Agency as a civilian intelligence case officer. 

He resigned from the position less than a year later, but performed contract work for the U.S. government until late 2011 that allowed him access to classified defense information.
From late 2012 to June 2018, Hansen’s only consistent source of income was his military pension of $1,900 per month. 

He was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and had maxed out his credit card limit.
In his plea agreement, Hansen admitted to meeting regularly with Chinese agents and to soliciting information from a U.S. intelligence officer that Chinese spies “would find valuable.”
“I advised the [Defense Intelligence Agency] case officer how to record and transmit classified information without detection, and I explained how to hide and launder any funds received as payment for classified information,” he said in the plea agreement.
The case officer reported Hansen’s approach to the FBI, which began its investigation in 2014. According to the criminal complaint, the FBI had already been suspicious of Hansen who had tried to gain access to classified information after he left the Defense Intelligence Agency and his repeated offers to work as a double agent against China.
In June 2018, Hansen met with the case officer, who had then become an informant for the FBI, and was given classified documents related to U.S. military readiness in a particular region. 

Hansen took notes on the documents, then planned to travel to China where he would provide the information to Chinese intelligence agents, the Justice Department said. 

Hansen was arrested later that day while he was on his way to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to board a flight to China.
Though Hansen was originally indicted on 15 charges related to espionage, he pleaded guilty to only one charge of attempting to transmit defense information.
“One of three ex-US intelligence officers recently convicted of acting on behalf of the People’s Republic of China, Ron Rockwell Hansen received hundreds of thousands of dollars for betraying his country and former colleagues,” assistant Attorney General of National Security John Demers said in a statement. 

“These cases show the breadth of the Chinese government’s espionage efforts and the threat they pose to our national security."

Spying for China: Former US intel officer, Army vet pleads guilty

By Kyle Rempfer  

The Chinese flag is raised during a military parade at the Zhurihe training base in China's northern Inner Mongolia region on July 30, 2017. 

A former Defense Intelligence Agency officer and U.S. Army veteran pleaded guilty Friday to attempting to steal and deliver military secrets to the Chinese government, Department of Justice officials announced.
Ron Rockwell Hansen, 59, was arrested by the FBI in June as he was trying to board a flight for China. 

The agency said he had been approached by Chinese intelligence agents in 2014, and received not less than $800,000 in funds originating from China as compensation for transmitting U.S. national secrets.
“This case drives home the troubling reality of insider threats and that current and former clearance holders will be targeted by our adversaries," Special Agent in Charge Barnhart said in a statement after the arrest.
Hansen pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City. 

He is a resident of Syracuse, Utah. 

The plea deal Hansen agreed to stipulated a 180-month sentence, pending court approval, DoJ officials said in their announcement.
Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 24.
Hansen was indicted on 15 counts, including attempting to gather or deliver defense information, acting as an agent of a foreign government, bulk cash smuggling, structuring monetary transactions and smuggling goods from the U.S.
Hansen had retired from the Army as a warrant officer, according to the DoJ. 

His background was in signals and human intelligence, officials said.
He is fluent in Mandarin and Russian, according to court documents.
After leaving the Army, Hansen was hired by the DIA as a civilian intelligence case officer in 2006.
In early 2014, Chinese intelligence agents targeted Hansen for recruitment and began meeting with him regularly in China, he admitted in his plea agreement.
The Chinese agents told Hansen during the meetings what type of information they wanted him to bring to them. 

In exchange, the agents provided Hansen with “hundreds of thousands of dollars” as compensation, according to the DoJ.
Between 2013 and 2017, Hansen would attend military and intelligence conferences in the U.S. and provide the information he learned at the conferences to contacts in China associated with the nation’s intelligence agency.
Beginning in May 2016, Hansen attempted to solicit information from a current DIA intelligence officer. 

Hansen was no longer working for the DIA by this time.

The Salt Lake Tribune
✔@sltrib
A Utah man who once served as a case officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency has pleaded guilty to trying to spy on the United States on behalf of China https://trib.al/HkDIroY

Utah man, a former federal intelligence officer, pleads guilty to trying to give classified...
A Utah man who once served as a case officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency has pleaded guilty to trying to spy on the United States on behalf of China.sltrib.com

Hansen told the other officer how to record and transmit the classified information without raising agency alarms, as well as how to launder the money he received as payment from the Chinese.
The other DIA officer was actually working as a confidential human source for the FBI, leading to Hansen’s arrest.
Hansen attempted to transfer the classified documents by memorization and taking written notes. 

He tried to conceal the notes in the text of an electronic document.
Hansen was caught while attempting to board a connecting flight to China from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in June.

New Pentagon report warns of Chinese laser threats to US satellites

By Ryan Browne and Ben Westcott

A new Pentagon report on threats in space warns that China and Russia are both developing capabilities to threaten the US' preeminent position, including lasers that could target and destroy US satellites.
"China and Russia, in particular, are developing a variety of means to exploit US reliance on space-based systems and challenge the US position in space," the Defense Intelligence Agency report said.
The report, which was published Monday, is titled "Challenges to Security in Space," and examines Russian, Chinese, Iranian and North Korean space capabilities.

US satellites play a critical role in everything from navigation, weapons targeting and intelligence gathering, including keeping tabs on North Korea's nuclear weapons program and monitoring Russian and Chinese military activity.
They also house sensors involved in detecting enemy missile launches.
The report comes as the Chinese government has been increasingly stepping up its space program, becoming the first nation to land a probe on the far side of the moon in January.
The growth of China's space capabilities and the need to help safeguard US satellites have been cited by the Trump administration as a reason why the US needs a Space Force.

Anti-satellite weapons
The report details a variety of Russian and Chinese anti-satellite weapons, including electronic warfare systems, directed-energy weapons and "kinetic" anti-satellite missiles.
It says both Beijing and Moscow are "likely" pursuing "laser weapons to disrupt, degrade, or damage satellites and their sensors."

"China likely will field a ground-based laser weapon that can counter low-orbit space-based sensors by 2020, and by the mid-to-late 2020s, it may field higher power systems that extend the threat to the structures of non-optical satellites," the report says
It adds that China "possibly already has a limited capability to employ laser systems against satellite sensors."
The reports says that Russia had delivered a laser weapon to its Aerospace Forces prior to July 2018, which is likely intended for an anti-satellite mission.
"Russia is also developing an airborne (anti-satellite) laser weapon system to use against space-based missile defense sensors," the report says.
The Trump administration is actively considering placing advanced sensors in space as part of its recent Missile Defense Review, which was unveiled last month.
The report warns that China also has an operational missile capable of hitting satellites in low-Earth orbit while Russia is in the process of developing one.
The Chinese military "has an operational ground-based (anti-satellite) missile intended to target (low-Earth orbit) satellites," the report said, adding that "China has also formed military units that have begun training with (anti-satellite) missiles."
The report says Russia is "likely" developing "a ground-based, mobile missile system capable of destroying space targets" in low-Earth orbit in addition to ballistic missiles.
"This weapon system is likely to be operational within the next several years," the report adds.
The report says Russia and China are also developing "inspection and servicing" satellites that could also be used to conduct attacks on satellites in orbit.

'The future of war'
US and China have seen relations deteriorate grow across a range of fronts in the past year, from trade tensions with the Trump administration to diplomatic and military disputes.
On his first full day on the job in January, acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told senior leaders at the Pentagon to "remember China, China, China."
One area of relative cooperation so far has been in space exploration. 

Despite starting far behind the US, Beijing is rapidly advancing its space program.
China is planning to land its first probe on Mars by the end of 2020 with the aim of sending a manned mission in the following years.
But Rep. Mike Rogers, then-chairman of the US House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, told CNN in 2018 "the future of war will be fought in space."
"Russia and China are surpassing us in space capabilities, and we need to dedicate a separate force solely with a space mission," he said.

Former U.S. Intelligence Officer Charged With Selling Secrets To China

By SCOTT NEUMAN

Ron Rockwell Hansen, 58, of Syracuse, Utah, was arrested on Saturday by the FBI on charges of attempted espionage for the Chinese.

A former Defense Intelligence Agency officer has been charged with attempted espionage for selling secrets to China.
Ron Rockwell Hansen, a 58-year-old Utah resident, was seized on Saturday on his way to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where prosecutors say he meant to board a China-bound flight.
According to The Associated Press, a 41-page felony complaint details how Hansen was paid as much as $800,000 over a period of years to provide technology and secrets to Beijing.
"Several years after he left the U.S. government, he attended trade conferences on behalf of China and shared information he gathered with officials connected to Chinese intelligence. Charging documents also allege he transferred forensic software worth several thousand dollars, in violation of export controls," the AP writes.
The FBI began investigating Hansen in 2014 and he approached FBI informants in 2015 and again in 2016, acknowledging to them that he was being paid to pass information to China, according to the AP.
Reuters reports that he also sold export-controlled technology.
"His actions are a betrayal of our nation's security and the American people and are an affront to his former intelligence community colleagues," John Demers, the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, was quoted by Reuters as saying.
Hansen was a DIA case officer while on active military duty from 2000-2006 and held a top-secret clearance for years.

Former CIA Officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee, Charged With Spying For China
Last month, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a 53-year-old former Central Intelligence Agency officer who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, was charged with conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of China.
In 2012, the FBI searched his hotel room in Honolulu and discovered notebooks of handwritten notes – including information about U.S. assets in China, according to court documents.

Ron Rockwell Hansen: US arrests man for trying to spy for China

A former US intelligence officer has appeared in court in Seattle charged with attempting to spy for China.
BBC News

Ron Rockwell Hansen, 58, was arrested by the FBI on Saturday on his way to a Seattle airport for a flight to China.
The justice department says Hansen attempted to pass on information and received at least $800,000 (£600,000) for acting as a Chinese agent.
He agreed in a brief court appearance to be returned to his home state of Utah to face charges.

What are the charges?
Hansen, who lives in Syracuse, Utah, was charged with attempting to gather or deliver national defence information to aid a foreign government.
Other charges -- there are 15 in total -- include acting as an unregistered foreign agent for China, bulk cash smuggling, structuring monetary transactions and smuggling goods from the US.
If convicted of attempted espionage, Hansen faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Assistant Attorney General John Demers called Hansen's actions "a betrayal of our nation's security" and an "affront to his former intelligence community colleagues".
John Huber, US attorney for the state of Utah, called the allegations "very troubling".

Who is Ron Hansen?
According to court documents cited by the justice department, Hansen served in the US Army as a warrant officer with a background in signals intelligence and human intelligence, before being recruited by the DIA as a civilian intelligence case officer in 2006.
The justice department says Hansen, who is fluent in Mandarin and Russian, held top secret clearance "for many years" and travelled regularly between the US and China in 2013-17.
He has attempted repeatedly to regain access to classified information after he stopped working for the US government, thereby alerting authorities to his actions.

What is the DIA?
The Defense Intelligence Agency is a branch of the Department of Defense, responsible for analysing and disseminating military intelligence.
The agency's primary responsibility is providing foreign military intelligence for US combat missions. 

It was established in 1961 and now has about 17,000 employees.

How are US-China relations?
The arrest comes at a challenging time for relations between the two countries. 

On Saturday, US Defence Secretary James Mattis accused China of attempting to intimidate its neighbours by deploying missiles to disputed islands in the South China Sea.
Trade talks currently taking place between the two countries in Beijing have been overshadowed by a looming start date for US tariffs on Chinese goods.
Late last month, the White House announced plans to place a 25% tariffs on $50bn (£37bn) worth of Chinese imports, a significant escalation in a trade war between the two countries.

What other spying cases have been reported?
Hansen is the latest in a string of former US intelligence officers caught up in spying cases related to China:

• Jerry Chun Shing, a former CIA case officer, was charged earlier this month with conspiring to gather or deliver national defence information to China
• Former CIA officer, Kevin Mallory, is currently on trial in Virginia, charged with selling information to the Chinese