A U.S Navy sailor was convicted Wednesday of espionage after he sold Navy secrets to a Chinese intelligence officer, federal officials said.
Jinchao Wei, a 25-year-old who also goes by Patrick Wei, was found guilty of six crimes, including conspiracy to commit espionage, espionage, and unlawful export of, and conspiracy to export, technical data related to defense articles in violation of the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. He was found not guilty of one count of naturalization fraud.
Prosecutors said Wei used his position as a machinist’s mate on the amphibious assault ship U.S.S. Essex at Naval Base San Diego to feed information to a Chinese intelligence officer who recruited Wei on social media in February 2022. He held a U.S. security clearance and had access to sensitive national defense information, including the weapons on the Essex, prosecutors said.
Amphibious assault ships allow the military to project power and maintain presence by serving as the cornerstone of the Navy’s amphibious readiness and expeditionary strike capabilities, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California said in a news release.
His attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
According to the news release, the intelligence officer initially presented himself as a naval enthusiast working for a shipbuilding company in China. However, evidence revealed that Wei had suspected the intelligence officer’s true identity and motive.
Prosecutors said Wei told a friend who was also in the Navy that he thought he was “on the radar of a China intelligence organization” and was “extremely suspicious” about the person. Wei told his friend that the person was “interested in the maintenance cycle of naval ships” and wanted Wei to walk the pier on a daily basis to see which ships were docked, according to the news release. Wei told his friend that the person would pay him $500.
Although Wei told his friend that he believed it was “quite obviously” espionage, Wei continued to communicate with the person on an encrypted messaging application and “began spying for the intelligence officer,” the attorney’s office said.
Between March 2022 and August 2023, when Wei was arrested, he sent photographs of the Essex, told the intelligence officer the location of various Navy ships and described the defense weapons on the Essex, the news release states. He also described problems with his ship and others and sent the intelligence officer “thousands of pages of technical and operational information about U.S. Navy surface warfare ships like the Essex that he took from restricted U.S. Navy computer systems,” according to the release.
The attorney’s office said that in total Wei gave the intelligence officer about 60 technical and operating manuals about U.S. Navy ships, dozens of photographs, and papers about the U.S. Navy and Wei’s assignments on the ship. Many of the manuals contained export-control warnings on the cover pages.
In exchange for the information, Wei was paid more than $12,000 over 18 months.
U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said Wei’s actions showed an “egregious betrayal of the trust placed in him as a member of the U.S. military.”
“By trading military secrets to the People’s Republic of China for cash, he jeopardized not only the lives of his fellow sailors but also the security of the entire nation and our allies,” he said in a statement. “The jury’s verdict serves as a crucial reminder that the Department of Justice will vigorously prosecute traitors.”
Wei is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 1.
