San Francisco tour guide charged with carrying U.S. secrets to China

[webfact]

San Francisco tour guide charged with carrying U.S. secrets to China

By Dan Whitcomb and Katie Paul

 

David L. Anderson, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California and John F. Bennett, FBI Special Agent in Charge announce that naturalized U.S. citizen Xuehua Peng, also known as Edward Peng, 56, was charged with working as an agent of the Chinese government, during a news conference in San Francisco, California, U.S. September 30, 2019. REUTERS/Kate Munsch

 

(Reuters) - A San Francisco tour guide has been charged with being an agent of the Chinese government, accused of picking up U.S. national security secrets from furtive locations and delivering them cloak and dagger style to Beijing, federal prosecutors said on Monday.

 

Xuehua Peng, also known as Edward Peng, was arrested on Friday in the San Francisco suburb of Hayward, California, and was denied bail during an initial court appearance by a U.S. magistrate judge that same day, federal prosecutors said at a Monday morning news conference.

 

"The conduct charged in this case alleges a combination of age-old spycraft and modern technology," U.S. Attorney David Anderson said.

 

"Defendant Xuehua (Edward) Peng is charged with executing dead drops, delivering payments, and personally carrying to Beijing, China, secure digital cards containing classified information related to the national security of the United States," Anderson said.

 

Peng, 56, is not accused of stealing secrets from the U.S. government himself, but is charged with acting as a courier who between October 2015 and June 2018 picked up classified information from the "dead drops" in Oakland and Newark, California, and Columbus, Georgia and delivering them to his handlers from the Ministry of State Security (MSS) in Beijing.

 

FBI agents began conducting surveillance on Peng after a double agent, referred to in court papers only as "the Source," was told by MSS officers in March 2015 that "Ed", who had family and business dealings in China, could be relied on.

 

"I believe that 'Ed' - who was later identified as Peng - had been instructed in spycraft, practiced it and knew that he was working for intelligence operatives of the PRC," FBI Agent Spiro Fokas, said in a sworn affidavit filed with the criminal complaint, referring to the People's Republic of China.

 

An MSS officer told the Source that the ministry "control(s) everything about Ed's" company and would "cut him off" if he did not do as told.

 

According to Fokas' affidavit, the double agent on several occasions passed information to Peng for delivery to Beijing, dropping them at the front desk of a hotel or in rooms reserved by Peng.

 

The dead drops sometimes involved Peng leaving $10,000 or $20,000 taped in white envelopes inside the drawer of a television stand and retrieving secure digital cards with the classified information, according to the court papers.

 

Peng then flew to Beijing with the digital cards, the affidavit alleges.

 

Peng, who works as a sight-seeing tour operator for Chinese tourists in the Bay Area, faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted, prosecutors said. He has been ordered to return to court in San Francisco on Oct. 2.

 

(Reporting by Katie Paul in San Franciso and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; editing by Andrea Ricci and Bill Berkrot)

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-10-01

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[Boon Mee]

Get 'Old Sparky' tuned up for this traitor! 

[IAMHERE]

Quote

Silver lining is that the USA still has some secrets.

 

[Pedrogaz]

I wonder why all spies caught in the US or UK as guilty as sin.....but those caught in China, Russia or Iran are all heroes who were totally innocent?

[rgraham]

Can't wait for the democrats to tie him to the president.

[Chomper Higgot]

4 hours ago, Boon Mee said:

Get 'Old Sparky' tuned up for this traitor! 

I think you are posting in the wrong thread.

[brenton]

ten years then deport

[oldrunner]

10 years is not enough. If he were caught spying in China for the US he would be executed.

[stevenl]

38 minutes ago, oldrunner said:

10 years is not enough. If he were caught spying in China for the US he would be executed.

Yes, and? You want to lower yourself?

[Morch]

4 hours ago, Pedrogaz said:

I wonder why all spies caught in the US or UK as guilty as sin.....but those caught in China, Russia or Iran are all heroes who were totally innocent?

 

You do not "wonder" so much as trolling. Are "those caught in China, Russia or Iran" labeled as anything other than spies by said countries? Do China, Russia or Iran routinely take responsibility, acknowledge or claim anything other than innocence with regard to allegations against "those caught" in the USA?

 

[Nyezhov]

I wonder how much disinformatsia they passed through him.