The U.S. attorney’s office filed charges in absentia предъявила against two officers of Chinese intelligence for bribing a government official to obstruct justice. The amount was approximately $61,000 in Bitcoin.
According to the statement, Gochun He and Zhang Wan attempted to recruit an official to steal documents related to “investigation and prosecution of a global telecom company” from China.
In fact, the employee acted as a double agent and was under the control of FBI.
“This was an egregious attempt by officers of the Chinese intelligence service to shield a China-based company from accountability and to undermine the integrity of our judicial system,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland at a press conference on Monday.
According to the media, the case concerns an investigation into Huawei.
The Chinese operatives tasked the “recruited” employee with stealing information of interest to them. In October 2021, he sent them via an encrypted messenger a page from what was purportedly an internal prosecutor’s memo bearing the stamp “Secret.” The document discussed a plan to indict and arrest two current employees of the company living in China.
Gochun He described the document as “what they expected from him,” and it passed authenticity checks. Then the officer paid the “agent” about $41,000 in Bitcoin allegedly on behalf of the pursued company.
In September 2022, he wired another $20,000 to a U.S. government official in cryptocurrency. According to He, his organization decided to allocate the additional remuneration.
The suspects are also charged with money laundering. If convicted on both counts, He faces up to 60 years in prison, and Wan up to 20 years.
Earlier in October in the United States charged a California resident with laundering $5.3 million through Bitcoin and illicit drug trafficking. He faces up to 20 years in prison on each count.
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