Former Navy sailor sentenced to 16 years for selling information about ships to Chinese intelligence
A former U.S. Navy sailor convicted of selling technical and operating manuals for ships and operating systems to an intelligence officer working for China was sentenced Monday to more than 16 years in prison, prosecutors said.
A federal judge in San Diego sentenced Jinchao Wei, 25, to 200 months in prison. A federal jury found Wei guilty in August of six crimes, including espionage. He was paid more than $12,000 for information he sold, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.
Wei, the engineer of the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, was one of them. Two sailors based in California On August 3, 2023, he was accused of providing sensitive military information to China. The other is Wenheng Zhao sentenced to more than two years in prison in 2024 after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy and accepting bribes in violation of official duties.
U.S. officials have for years expressed concern about the espionage threat they say the Chinese government poses, and in recent years have filed criminal cases against Beijing intelligence officials who have stolen sensitive government and commercial information, including through illegal hacking.
Prosecutors said Wei was recruited in 2022 by an intelligence officer who posed via social media as a shipping enthusiast working for the state-owned China Shipbuilding Industry Corp.
Evidence presented in court showed Wei told a friend that the person was “extremely suspicious” and that it was “pretty obvious” espionage. Prosecutors said Wei ignored his friend’s advice to delete the connection and instead moved conversations with the intelligence officer to a different encrypted messaging app that Wei believed was more secure.
Over the course of 18 months, Wei sent the officer photos and videos of the Essex, advised him on the locations of various Navy ships and gave him information about the Essex’s defensive weapons, prosecutors said.
Wei sold 60 technical and operating manuals to the intelligence officer, including on weapons control, aircraft and deck elevators. The manuals included export control warnings and detailed the operations of multiple systems aboard the Essex and similar ships.
He was a petty officer second class, the rank of enlisted seaman.
Navy’s website says The Essex is equipped to transport and support the Marine Corps’ landing force of more than 2,000 soldiers during air and amphibious assault.
Before sentencing, Wei apologized in a letter to the judge and said he should not have shared anything with the person he considered a friend. Wei said “introversion and loneliness” clouded his judgment.
