A 71-year-old old ex- Central Intelligence Agency agent plead guilty Friday to conspiring with Chinese spies to steal military secrets from the U.S. for $50,000.

Alexander Yuk Ching Ma of Honolulu entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and pleaded guilty to conspiring to “gather and deliver national defense information” to the People’s Republic of China, according to a news release.

In exchange for his guilty plea, federal prosecutors agreed not to pursue additional charges related to gathering, retaining and sharing classified information from the U.S. Department of Defense with China’s Shanghai State Security Bureau, a subsidiary of China’s Ministry of State Security.

Ma and his brother were naturalized U.S. citizens who were born in Hong Kong and Shanghai, respectively. Ma’s brother worked for the CIA ­­­from 1967 until 1983, when he moved to Los Angeles.

Ma worked for the CIA from 1982 until 1989.

His brother in California, 85 at the time of Ma’s arrest in 2020, was not charged because of a debilitating and advanced cognitive issue.

As CIA officers, the Ma brothers held top-secret security clearances that granted them access to “sensitive and classified CIA information,” and signed nondisclosure agreements that required them to maintain the secrecy of that information.

Ma maintained top-secret clearance and also had access to sensitive compartmented information.

After retiring from the CIA in March 2001, Ma acted on requests from Chinese spies. He and his brother met SSSB intelligence officers in a Hong Kong hotel room and spent three days, March 24-26, 2001, disclosing classified information in exchange for $50,000.

Ma and his brother sat around a circular conference table while spilling secrets in the Hong Kong hotel room.

The brothers agreed to keep helping China during the meeting, according to the plea agreement filed Friday.

The Ma brothers allegedly disclosed “CIA international operations, including the covers for CIA officers and activities; cryptographic information used in classified and sensitive CIA communications and reports; the internal structure and organization of the CIA; the identities of CIA officers and human assets; CIA’s staffing practices and technical departments; and CIA’s operational trade craft, including secure communication practices,” according to an Aug. 18, 2019, motion to detain Ma without bail.

Ma once maintained a condominium in Hawaii Kai and a home in China, where he also kept at least one bank account.

Two years later, in March 2003, Ma applied for a job as a contract linguist in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Honolulu Field Office. The FBI was already aware that Ma was working for China and hired him as part of its investigation into his illegal activities.

Ma was assigned to an off-site location on Oahu where he could be watched and his work for China monitored from August 2004 through October 2012.

In February 2006, Ma got his brother to identify two people from photos shared with Ma by SSSB officers.

“The individuals’ identities were and remain classified U.S. national defense information. Ma confessed that he knew that this information, and the information communicated in March 2001, would be used to injure the United States or to benefit the PRC, and he deliberately engaged in the criminal conspiracy,” according to federal prosecutors.

Ma must cooperate with the government before his plea is accepted by a federal judge.

Ma must sit for “debriefings by U.S. government agencies,” and if the agreement is accepted, he will serve 10 years in prison.

Ma’s sentencing is set for 9 a.m. Sept. 11 before Chief U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson. The case was prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson, chief of the Criminal Division; assistant U.S. Attorney Craig S. Nolan; and trial attorneys Scott Claffee and Leslie Esbrook of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.

Ma will remain in custody at the Federal Detention Center, Honolulu. He is banned from having any contact with foreign intelligence services and will forfeit all the proceeds from his work spying for China.