A CCP Engineer Sentenced to 8 Years for Spying

According to a statement of the U.S. Department of Justice released on January 25th, according to the ruling of a federal district court judge, Chaoqun Ji, a 31-year-old Chinese national engineer, was found guilty of acting illegally within the United States as an agent of the CCP and given an 8 years prison term for four counts of convictions. The Chicago federal jury ruled on September 27th, 2022, that two of the charges against Chaoqun Ji were established, one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) without notifying the US Attorney General; and another count of making a material false statement to the U.S. Army. Ji entered the U.S. with a student visa in 2013 to study electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology and obtained a master’s degree in 2015. He was accused of collecting and providing biographical information of 8 U.S. citizens born in China or Taiwan, who were working as engineers and scientists in the field of aerospace technology, some of whom worked for U.S. defense contractors, at the direction of high-level intelligence officers in the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security, PRC. These engineers and scientists may have been targeted for recruitment by the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security. In 2016, Ji joined the U.S. Army Reserves under the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest, a talent recruitment program authorized by the U.S. Army Forces. He was accused of falsely stating that he had not had connect with a foreign government within the past seven years and failed to disclose his relationship and contacts with a foreign intelligence officer in a subsequent interview with a U.S. Army officer. Ji was arrested in September 2018.