A former US Navy sailor convicted of selling technical and operational manuals for ships and operating systems to an intelligence officer working for China was sentenced Monday to more than 16 years in prison, prosecutors said.
A federal judge in San Diego sentenced 25-year-old Jinchao Wei to 200 months. A federal jury convicted Wei in August of six felonies, including espionage. He was paid more than $12,000 for the information he sold, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.
Wei, an engineer for the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, was one of two sailors based in California accused on August 3, 2023, of providing sensitive military information to China. The other, Wenheng Zhao, was sentenced to more than two years in 2024 after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of receiving a bribe in violation of his official duties.
US officials have for years expressed concern about the espionage threat they say the Chinese government poses, and in recent years have brought criminal cases against Beijing intelligence operatives who stole sensitive government and commercial information, including through illegal hacking.
Wei was recruited through social media in 2022 by an intelligence officer who posed as a naval enthusiast working for the state-owned China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, prosecutors said.
Evidence presented in court showed that Wei told a friend that the person was “very suspicious” and that it was “quite obvious” espionage. Wei ignored the friend’s advice to delete the contact and instead moved conversations with the intelligence officer to a different encrypted messaging app Wei believed was more secure, prosecutors said.
Over the course of 18 months, Wei sent the officer photos and videos of the Essex, advised him of the location of various Navy ships and told him about the Essex’s defensive weapons, prosecutors said.
Wei sold the intelligence officer 60 technical and operational manuals, including those for weapons control, aircraft and deck elevators. The manuals contained export control warnings and detailed the operations of multiple systems aboard the Essex and similar ships.
He was a petty officer second class, which is the rank of an enlisted sailor.
The Navy website says the Essex is equipped to transport and support a Marine Corps landing force of more than 2,000 troops during air and amphibious assault.
In a letter to the judge before the sentence was handed down, Wei apologized and said that he should not have shared anything with the person he considered a friend. Wei said that “introversion and loneliness” clouded his judgment.