The Chinese government has sentenced a former graduate student in Chicago to eight years in prison for spying for the Chinese government. Ji Chaoqun, a Chinese national would gather information on engineers and scientists in the United States.
He came to the US to study electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2013 and later enlisted in the US Army Reserves. He was convicted in 2018 of acting illegally as an agent of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS).
According to US authorities, 31-year-old Chaoqun worked under a key Chinese state intelligence unit. He was convicted of making false statements to the US army and of acting as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the US attorney-general.
According to the Justice Department, Chaoqun supplied biographical information on individuals for potential recruitment as Chinese spies to the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security (JSSD).
When he applied to be enlisted in the US Army Reserves, he falsely stated that he had not had any contact with a foreign government within the past seven years and during an interview, he did not reveal that he had contacts with Chinese intelligence officers.
