The U.S. Justice
Department released the below information:
A former Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA) officer, who pleaded guilty in March to attempting to
communicate, deliver, or transmit information involving the national defense of
the United States to the People’s Republic of China, will serve 10 years in federal
prison. U.S. District Judge Dee Benson imposed the sentence Tuesday
afternoon in Salt Lake City.
Ron Rockwell Hansen,
60, of Syracuse, Utah, was arrested June 2, 2018, on his way to the
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Seattle, Washington, as he was
preparing to board a flight to China while in possession of SECRET military
information.
“One of three ex-US
intelligence officers recently convicted of acting on behalf of the People’s
Republic of China, Ron Rockwell Hansen received hundreds of thousands of
dollars for betraying his country and former colleagues,” said Assistant
Attorney General of National Security John C. Demers. “These cases show
the breadth of the Chinese government’s espionage efforts and the threat they
pose to our national security. Our intelligence professionals swear an
oath to protect our country’s most closely held secrets and the National
Security Division will continue to relentlessly pursue justice against those
who violate this oath.”
“The Chinese
government continues to attempt to identify and recruit current and former
members of the United States intelligence community. This is a very
troubling trend. These individuals must remain vigilant and immediately report
any suspicious activity. The Hansen case is an example of what will happen
to those who violate the public’s trust and risk our national security by
disclosing classified information,” said U.S. Attorney John W. Huber for the
District of Utah.
“Ron Hansen was
willing to betray his oath and his country for financial gain,” said Special
Agent in Charge Paul Haertel of the FBI’s Salt Lake City Field Office.
"This case brings to light that not all spies are foreign
adversaries. Insider threats pose a significant national security risk,
and the FBI will continue to aggressively investigate those who put our country
and citizens at risk.”
Hansen retired from
the U.S. Army as a Warrant Officer with a background in signals intelligence
and human intelligence. He speaks fluent Mandarin-Chinese and Russian,
according to court documents. Upon retiring from active duty, DIA hired Hansen
as a civilian intelligence case officer in 2006. Hansen held a Top Secret
clearance for many years, and signed several non-disclosure agreements during
his tenure at DIA and as a government contractor.
As Hansen admitted in
the plea agreement, in early 2014, agents of a Chinese intelligence service
targeted him for recruitment, and he began meeting with them regularly in
China. During these meetings, the agents described to Hansen the type of
information that would interest Chinese intelligence. Hansen stipulated
that during the course of his relationship with Chinese intelligence, he
received hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for information he
provided them.
Between May 24, 2016,
and June 2, 2018, Hansen admitted he solicited national security information
from an intelligence case officer working for the DIA. Hansen admitted
knowing that the Chinese intelligence services would find the information
valuable, and he agreed to act as a conduit to sell that information to the
Chinese. He advised the DIA case officer how to record and transmit
classified information without detection, and how to hide and launder any funds
received as payment for classified information. He admitted he now
understands that the DIA case officer reported his conduct to the DIA and
subsequently acted as a confidential human source for the FBI.
Hansen admitted
meeting with the DIA case officer on June 2, 2018, and receiving individual
documents containing national defense information that he had previously
solicited. The documents he received were classified. The documents
included national security information related to U.S. military readiness in a
particular region -- information closely held by the federal government. Hansen
did not possess a security clearance nor did he possess a need to know the
information contained in the materials.
As a part of his plea
agreement, Hansen admitted he reviewed the documents, queried the case officer
about their contents, and took written notes which contained information
determined to be classified. He advised the DIA case officer that he
would remember most of the details about the documents he received that day and
would conceal notes about the material in the text of an electronic document he
would prepare at the airport before leaving for China. He admitted he
intended to provide the information he received to the agents of the Chinese
Intelligence Service with whom he had been meeting. He also admitted
knowing that the information was to be used to the injury of the United States
and to the advantage of a foreign nation.
As a part of the plea
agreement, Hansen has agreed to forfeit property acquired from or traceable to
his offense, including property used to facilitate the crime.
The case was handled
by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert A. Lund, Karin Fojtik, Mark K. Vincent and
Alicia Cook of the District of Utah, and Trial Attorneys Patrick T. Murphy,
Matthew J. McKenzie and Adam L. Small of the National Security Division’s
Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. Prosecutors from the U.S.
Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington assisted with this
case.
The prosecution is the
result of an investigation by special agents of the FBI, IRS-Criminal
Investigation, U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of Defense,
U.S. Army Counterintelligence, and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
