Former Chicago graduate student Ji Chaoqun, 31, was convicted of spying for the Chinese government by a US federal jury on Monday after being found guilty of gathering intelligence on engineers and scientists in the US with “valuable knowledge” on artificial intelligence, aerospace technology and aircraft carriers, according to a report by The South China Morning Post.
Chaoqun, who was arrested in 2018, was found to have acted as an agent of China’s Ministry of State Security without notifying US authorities and lying on a government form about his contacts with foreign agencies. He has yet to be sentenced, the report said.
The charges against Ji were part of a wider national security investigation that also led to the arrest and unprecedented extradition of his handler, Xu Yangjun, a senior intelligence officer in China’s main spy agency, according to a report on the same case by the Chicago Tribune.
“Xu, the first Chinese spy ever brought to the US to face criminal prosecution, was convicted in federal court in Cincinnati last November of trying to steal trade secrets from military contractor GE Aviation. He is scheduled to be sentenced later this year,” the report said.
Read the full report: Chicago Tribune.
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