Prosecutors accused sailor Jinchao Wei of promoting details about US Navy ships to Chinese language intelligence operatives.
Revealed 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 methods to an intelligence officer working for China.
On Monday, a federal choose 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 data, the US Division of Justice mentioned 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 army data to China. The opposite, Wenheng Zhao, was sentenced to greater than two years in 2024 after he pleaded responsible to at least one depend of conspiracy and one depend 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 legal circumstances towards Beijing intelligence operatives who’ve allegedly stolen delicate authorities and business data, together with via 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 Business Company, prosecutors mentioned.
Proof offered in courtroom confirmed Wei advised a pal that the individual 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 distinct encrypted messaging app he believed to be safer, prosecutors mentioned.
Over the course of 18 months, Wei despatched the officer pictures and movies of the Essex, suggested him of the situation of varied naval ships and advised him in regards to the Essex’s defensive weapons, prosecutors mentioned.
Wei offered 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 methods 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 help a Marine Corps touchdown power of greater than 2,000 personnel throughout an air and amphibious assault.
In a letter to the choose earlier than sentencing, Wei apologised and mentioned he mustn’t have shared something with the individual whom he had thought of a pal. Wei mentioned “introversion and loneliness” clouded his judgement.
