Top-secret information revealed

On 22 June 2017, a former US diplomatic officer was arrested and charged with giving top-secret documents to a Chinese agent. He was caught with $16,500 in cash in his carry-on luggage, transmitting top-secret documents to an apparent Chinese agent. Kevin Mallory, 60, of Leesburg was arrested on Thursday and made an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.

The self-employed consultant who speaks Chinese is charged under the Federal Espionage Act and could face life in prison. In fact, if certain criteria are met, the charges could make Mallory eligible for the death penalty, prosecutor John Gibbs said at Mallory's initial appearance.

Kevin Mallory

Mallory, 60, of Leesburg was arrested on Thursday and made an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. A self-employed consultant who speaks Chinese, court records note that he is an Army veteran and worked as a special agent for the Diplomatic Security Service at the U.S. State Department from 1987 to 1990. Since 1990, he has worked for a variety of government agencies and defence contractors, according to the affidavit. He held Top Secret security clearance until he left government service in 2012.

Analysis

Mallory travelled to Shanghai in April, and was interviewed by Customs agents at O'Hare Airport in Chicago after he failed to declare $16,500 in cash found in two carry-on bags.The FBI interviewed him the next month, and he admitted that he met with two people from a Chinese think-tank, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, that he now believed were Chinese intelligence agents. He said they had given him a special communications device for transmitting documents.

Two documents he transferred were unclassified "white papers" he had written on U.S. policy matters, for which he was paid $25,000.

But FBI agents searched the device and found other documents and messages that Mallory thought had been deleted, according to the affidavit. In one message, Mallory wrote to the suspected Chinese agent, "your object is to gain information, and my object is to be paid."

Chinese espionage in the US

China is alleged to have begun a widespread effort to acquire U.S. military technology and classified information and the trade secrets of U.S. companies. The Chinese government is accused of stealing trade secrets and technology, often from companies in the United States, to help support its long-term military and commercial development. China has been accused of using a number of methods to obtain U.S. technology (using U.S. law to avoid prosecution), including espionage, exploitation of commercial entities and a network of scientific, academic and business contacts. Although it uses a network of contacts to collect information used to benefit Chinese businesses, each bit of information does not invite scrutiny or prosecution by the U.S. government.

Assessment

Our assessment is that more vigil and security must be applied to private contractors who work on government projects. Most of the recent incidents of espionage or data leakage has emanated from private contractors.