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Prosecutors accused sailor Jinchao Wei of promoting details about US Navy ships to Chinese language intelligence operatives.
Printed On 13 Jan 2026
A former United States Navy sailor has been sentenced to greater than 16 years in jail after being convicted of promoting technical and working manuals for ships and working techniques to an intelligence officer working for China.
On Monday, a federal decide in San Diego sentenced Jinchao Wei, 25, to 200 months in jail.
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In August, a jury convicted Wei of six crimes, together with espionage, based mostly on accusations he was paid greater than $12,000 for promoting info, the US Division of Justice stated in an announcement.
Wei, an engineer for the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, was one among two California-based sailors charged on August 3, 2023, with offering delicate navy info to China. The opposite, Wenheng Zhao, was sentenced to greater than two years in 2024 after he pleaded responsible to 1 rely of conspiracy and one rely of receiving a bribe in violation of his official duties.
For years, US officers have expressed concern in regards to the espionage risk they are saying the Chinese language authorities poses, and prosecutors have pursued felony circumstances towards Beijing intelligence operatives who’ve allegedly stolen delicate authorities and business info, together with by unlawful hacking.
Wei was recruited through social media in 2022 by an intelligence officer who portrayed himself as a naval fanatic working for the state-owned China Shipbuilding Trade Company, prosecutors stated.
Proof introduced in courtroom confirmed Wei instructed a pal that the particular person was “extraordinarily suspicious” and that it was “fairly clearly” espionage.
Wei disregarded the pal’s recommendation to delete the contact and as an alternative moved conversations with the intelligence officer to a unique encrypted messaging app he believed to be safer, prosecutors stated.
Over the course of 18 months, Wei despatched the officer images and movies of the Essex, suggested him of the situation of assorted naval ships and instructed him in regards to the Essex’s defensive weapons, prosecutors stated.
Wei bought the intelligence officer 60 technical and working manuals, together with these for weapons management, plane and deck elevators. The manuals contained export management warnings and detailed the operations of a number of techniques on board the Essex and related ships.
He was a petty officer second class, which is an enlisted sailor’s rank.
The navy’s web site says the Essex is supplied to move and assist a Marine Corps touchdown pressure of greater than 2,000 personnel throughout an air and amphibious assault.
In a letter to the decide earlier than sentencing, Wei apologised and stated he shouldn’t have shared something with the particular person whom he had thought-about a pal. Wei stated “introversion and loneliness” clouded his judgement.
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