Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

Mysterious bank deposits fueled suspicion of former CIA officer

WASHINGTON — While United States intelligence authorities investigated a possible Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) mole in recent years, they discovered that one former agency officer had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in unexplained bank deposits, current and former government officials said on Wednesday (Jan 24).

An aerial view of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia. While American intelligence authorities investigated a possible CIA mole, they discovered that ex-agent Jerry Chun Shing Lee had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in unexplained bank deposits. Photo: Reuters

An aerial view of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia. While American intelligence authorities investigated a possible CIA mole, they discovered that ex-agent Jerry Chun Shing Lee had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in unexplained bank deposits. Photo: Reuters

Follow TODAY on WhatsApp

WASHINGTON — While United States intelligence authorities investigated a possible Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) mole in recent years, they discovered that one former agency officer had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in unexplained bank deposits, current and former government officials said on Wednesday (Jan 24).

The money deepens the mystery surrounding Jerry Chun Shing Lee, the former CIA officer, who faces a charge of keeping national security secrets in his notebooks after he left government.

It helps explain why many US law enforcement officials suspected that Lee had provided information to China — a suspicion for which no direct evidence has surfaced.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Lee this month in New York after a lengthy counter-intelligence investigation that began several years ago when the CIA’s informant network in China was compromised and many of its assets were imprisoned or killed.

It was a devastating blow to the CIA’s ability to collect intelligence in China and is regarded inside the government as one of the worst compromises in modern American intelligence.

Lee, 53, is awaiting transfer to federal court in Northern Virginia, where he was charged. His family has declined to comment, and no lawyer has appeared on his behalf. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

A task force of FBI agents and CIA officers investigated Lee for years.

Former officials say Lee had access to information that could have helped the Chinese figure out the identities of the US informants. He also had repeated contacts with Chinese intelligence while working for the CIA and once he had left government.

But officials disagreed over whether Lee was responsible for the lost informants. Some argued that sloppy tradecraft was to blame or suggested that the Chinese government had cracked the encrypted system that American spies used to communicate with their informants.

In 2012, the task force used the promise of a lucrative consulting job to lure Lee to the US from Hong Kong, where he had resettled. While he was in the country, agents secretly searched his belongings and found a pair of notebooks containing sensitive details about CIA operations and the identities of undercover officers and informants.

The FBI interviewed Lee five times but never directly asked him if had worked for the Chinese government. In a calculated gamble, investigators let Lee leave the country in 2013 in hopes of gathering more evidence and proving he had committed espionage.

Sometime after he returned to Hong Kong, current and former officials said, US intelligence agencies spotted the suspicious bank activity. It is not clear if the money was transferred at once or over several transactions.

The fact that the US government was tracking his finances shows the depths of their concerns about Lee, but ultimately the money did not prove their suspicions.

Lee is not expected to face additional charges beyond the single classified information count, officials have said, meaning his case will likely shed little light on the lost informants or the government’s efforts to identify the cause.

Lee spent 13 years at the CIA. It is not clear why he left before retirement, but former colleagues say he was disgruntled and unhappy that he had not been promoted faster.

After the CIA, he worked for Japan Tobacco International as an investigator, but he was later fired. Lee then opened his own private investigations company with a former Hong Kong police officer. The company went out of business in 2014, and Lee was hired by Este Lauder, the cosmetics giant.

At the time of his arrest, he was employed by Christie’s, the global auction house, which had sent him to the US on a work-related trip. THE NEW YORK TIMES

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.