China killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 CIA sources from 2010 to 2012, hobbling U.S. spying operations in a massive intelligence breach whose origin has not been identified, the New York Times reported on Saturday. Investigators remain divided over whether there was a spy within the Central Intelligence Agency who betrayed the sources or whether the Chinese hacked the CIA's covert communications system, the newspaper reported, citing current and former U.S. officials.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Reuters. </s> Both the CIA and the FBI declined to comment on reports saying the Chinese government killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 CIA sources from 2010 to 2012 and dismantled the agency’s spying operations in the country. It is described as one of the worst intelligence breach in decades, current and former American officials told the New… </s> The Chinese government killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 informants working with the CIA between 2010 and 2012, The New York Times reported Saturday, citing two former senior U.S. officials who remained unnamed. The CIA declined to comment for the Times story.

Five years later, it is still not certain how the sources were identified, only that their grim fates significantly crippled American intelligence efforts in China. Some in the intelligence community suspect a mole, the Times reported, while others believe Chinese hackers could have breached CIA systems.

The ambiguity is "really troubling," Times journalist Matt Apuzzo told the BBC, but whatever the breach was, it seems to have ended by 2013. "For many years China and the U.S. have been locked in this spy battle that's been going on behind the scenes," Apuzzo added. "It goes back and forth." Bonnie Kristian </s> WASHINGTON — The Chinese government systematically dismantled C.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.

Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades. It set off a scramble in Washington’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain the fallout, but investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved.

But there was no disagreement about the damage. From the final weeks of 2010 through the end of 2012, according to former American officials, the Chinese killed at least a dozen of the C.I.A.’s sources. According to three of the officials, one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A.

Still others were put in jail. All told, the Chinese killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 of the C.I.A.’s sources in China, according to two former senior American officials, effectively unraveling a network that had taken years to build. </s> China systematically dismantled CIA spying efforts in the country from 2010, killing or jailing more than a dozen covert sources, in a deep setback to US intelligence there, according to a report by The New York Times.

The Times, quoting 10 current and former US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades.

The report, released on Sunday, said that even now intelligence officials were unsure whether the US was betrayed by a mole within the CIA or whether the Chinese hacked a covert system used by the CIA to communicate with foreign sources.

Of the damage inflicted on what had been one of the most productive US spy networks, there was no doubt that at least a dozen CIA sources were killed between late 2010 and the end of 2012, it said.

"One was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building - a message to others who might have been working for the CIA," the report said.

In all, 18 to 20 CIA sources in China were either killed or imprisoned, according to two former senior American officials quoted.

The breach was considered particularly damaging, with the number of assets lost rivaling those in the Soviet Union and Russia who perished after information passed to Moscow by spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, the report said.

The CIA's mole hunt in China, following the severe losses to its network there, was intense and urgent. Nearly every employee of the US Embassy in Beijing was scrutinised at one point, the newspaper said.

The Chinese activities began to emerge in 2010, when the American spy agency had been getting high quality information about the Chinese government from sources deep inside the bureaucracy, including Chinese upset by the Beijing government's corruption, four former officials told the Times.

The information began to dry up by the end of the year and the sources began disappearing in early 2011, the report said.

As more sources were killed, the FBI and the CIA began a joint investigation of the breach, examining all operations run in Beijing and every employee of the US Embassy there. </s> Chinese authorities dealt a major blow to US intelligence gathering efforts by killing or imprisoning up to 20 CIA sources. (Getty Images)

Chinese authorities murdered or imprisoned as many as 20 CIA sources in a massive breach which damaged US intelligence gathering in China.

China killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 CIA sources from 2010 to 2012, hobbling American spying operations in a massive intelligence breach whose origin has not been identified, the New York Times has reported.

Investigators remain divided over whether there was a spy within the Central Intelligence Agency who betrayed the sources or whether the Chinese hacked the CIA's covert communications system, the newspaper reported, citing current and former US officials.

The Chinese killed at least a dozen people providing information to the CIA from 2010 through 2012, dismantling a network that was years in the making, the newspaper reported.

One was shot and killed in front of a government building in China, three officials told the Times, saying that was designed as a message to others about working with Washington.

The breach was considered particularly damaging, with the number of assets lost rivalling those in the Soviet Union and Russia who perished after information passed to Moscow by spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, the report said.

Ames was active as a spy in the 1980s and Hanssen from 1979 to 2001.

The CIA declined to comment when asked about the Times report on Saturday.

The Chinese activities began to emerge in 2010, when the American spy agency had been getting high quality information about the Chinese government from sources deep inside the bureaucracy, including Chinese upset by the Beijing government's corruption, four former officials told the Times.

The information began to dry up by the end of the year and the sources began disappearing in early 2011, the report said.

As more sources were killed the FBI and the CIA began a joint investigation of the breach, examining all operations run in Beijing and every employee of the US Embassy there.

The investigation ultimately centred on a former CIA operative who worked in a division overseeing China, the newspaper said, but there was not enough evidence to arrest him.

Some investigators believed the Chinese had hacked the CIA's covert communications system.

Still others thought the breach was a result of careless spy work including traveling the same routes to the same meeting points or meeting sources at restaurants where Chinese had planted listening devices, the newspaper said.

By 2013, US intelligence concluded China's ability to identify its agents had been curtailed, the newspaper said, and the CIA has been trying to rebuild its spy network there. </s> A security agent stands guard near the Great Hall of the People as the sun appears through smog ahead of the closing ceremony of China's National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing, China, March 16, 2016. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

China killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 CIA sources from 2010 to 2012, hobbling U.S. spying operations in a massive intelligence breach whose origin has not been identified, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

Investigators remain divided over whether there was a spy within the Central Intelligence Agency who betrayed the sources or whether the Chinese hacked the CIA’s covert communications system, the newspaper reported, citing current and former U.S. officials.

The Chinese killed at least a dozen people providing information to the CIA from 2010 through 2012, dismantling a network that was years in the making, the newspaper reported.

One was shot and killed in front of a government building in China, three officials told the Times, saying that was designed as a message to others about working with Washington.

The breach was considered particularly damaging, with the number of assets lost rivaling those in the Soviet Union and Russia who perished after information passed to Moscow by spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, the report said. Ames was active as a spy in the 1980s and Hanssen from 1979 to 2001.

The CIA declined to comment when asked about the Times report on Saturday.

The Chinese activities began to emerge in 2010, when the American spy agency had been getting high quality information about the Chinese government from sources deep inside the bureaucracy, including Chinese upset by the Beijing government’s corruption, four former officials told the Times.

The information began to dry up by the end of the year and the sources began disappearing in early 2011, the report said.

As more sources were killed the FBI and the CIA began a joint investigation of the breach, examining all operations run in Beijing and every employee of the U.S. Embassy there.

The investigation ultimately centered on a former CIA operative who worked in a division overseeing China, the newspaper said, but there was not enough evidence to arrest him.

Some investigators believed the Chinese had hacked the CIA’s covert communications system.

Still others thought the breach was a result of careless spy work including traveling the same routes to the same meeting points or meeting sources at restaurants where Chinese had planted listening devices, the newspaper said.

By 2013, U.S. intelligence concluded China’s ability to identify its agents had been curtailed, the newspaper said, and the CIA has been trying to rebuild its spy network there. </s> From the last few weeks of 2010 to the end of 2012, China killed or imprisoned up to 20 sources cultivated by the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States's premier spy agency, a New York Times report said.

The US daily spoke ten current and former unnamed American officials to reveal how the Chinese systematically destroyed what had become the CIA's most productive spying operation in China. According to the report, the Chinese counter-intelligence killed at least a dozen of the CIA's sources.

One source, three American officials reportedly said, was shot dead in front of his colleagues at a government building in China. The act was likely meant to serve as a message to others who may have been working for the CIA.

According to the NYT report, by 2010, the CIA had managed to build a vast network of spies in China, cultivating sources within the bureaucracy in Beijing. Some of the sources were Chinese nationals who the CIA believed had become disenchanted with government corruption in China.

By 2010, thanks to the CIA's intelligence operation, the Americans were receiving some of the best intelligence they had gathered in years in China, a top priority for the agency. However, by early 2011, the intelligence started drying up and American officials soon started to realise that some of their Chinese sources were starting to disappear.

This set off alarm bells in the US, prompting the CIA and the Federal Investigation Agency to begin an investigation. Working out a secret facility in US, the probe looked into each and every aspect of the CIA's China operation. Nearly all officials at the United States embassy in China were probed, NYT reported.

The investigation started taking more urgency as more CIA sources started disappearing in China. By 2013, the joint CIA-FBI probe concluded that China had been successful in crippling the US's intelligence operation in China.

Notably, NYT reports that the probe failed to discover exactly what happened. The investigators considered the possibility of a CIA insider had leaked information to the Chinese. The probe even narrowed down upon a possible suspect.

However, other officials rejected the mole theory and instead believed that US operatives had become sloppy with their spy tradecraft, using the same routes to travel and meeting sources at the same locations, making it easier for Chinese counter-intelligence to identify American spies' movements.

According to the NYT, the probe also found how Chinese counter-intelligence bugged restaurants where US operatives met their sources and even infiltrated the meeting spots with waiters who were actually spies.

Another theory was that the Chinese had been able to crack the cover method the Central Intelligence Agency used to communicate with its sources.

The CIA-FBI investigation, however, did not reach upon a final theory. The CIA has tried to rebuild its China operation, but it is a money and time consuming effort, the NYT report notes.

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ALSO WATCH | Trump says China could have hacked Democratic emails during US presidential polls </s> WASHINGTON — A former C.I.A. officer suspected by investigators of helping China dismantle United States spying operations and identify informants has been arrested, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. The collapse of the spy network was one of the American government’s worst intelligence failures in recent years.

The arrest of the former officer, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 53, capped an intense F.B.I. inquiry that began around 2012, two years after the C.I.A. began losing its informants in China. Investigators confronted an enduring mystery: How did the names of so many C.I.A. sources, among the agency’s most dearly held secrets, end up in Chinese hands?

Some intelligence officials believed that a mole inside the C.I.A. was exposing its roster of informants. Others thought that the Chinese government had hacked the C.I.A.’s covert communications used to talk to foreign sources of information.

Still other former intelligence officials have also argued that the spy network might have been crippled by a combination of both, as well as sloppy tradecraft by agency officers in China. The counterintelligence investigation into how the Chinese managed to hunt down American agents was a source of friction between the C.I.A. and F.B.I. </s> Washington: A former spy for the US Central Intelligence Agency has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted on charges of conspiring to transmit defence secrets to China, the US Justice Department said.

Kevin Patrick Mallory, of Leesburg, Virginia, was found guilty by a federal jury in June 2018 of several counts of conspiring to provide national defence information to aid a foreign government and making false statements.

“This case is one in an alarming trend of former US intelligence officers being targeted by China and betraying their country and colleagues," Assistant Attorney-General John Demers said in a statement.

The Justice Department said that Mallory, 62, held numerous sensitive jobs with government agencies and defence contractors. His career included working as a covert case officer for the CIA and as an intelligence officer for the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). He held a top secret security clearance until he stopped working as a CIA contractor in 2012. He then launched his own consulting business.
Former United States officials report that 18–20 Central Intelligence Agency sources were killed or imprisoned by the Government of China between 2010 and 2012, which significantly hampered the United States Intelligence Community.