Official accused of leaking info on secret agents confesses to working for China since 2017

A military intelligence official indicted for allegedly leaking the identities of undercover South Korean agents has admitted to working for a Chinese operative since 2017, military prosecutors said Wednesday.

A photograph of the Ministry of National Defense in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on May 9, 2022. [NEWS1]

A military intelligence official indicted for allegedly leaking the identities of undercover South Korean agents has admitted to working for a Chinese operative since 2017, military prosecutors said Wednesday.

The 49-year-old official, who worked for the Defense Intelligence Command before his suspension, initially denied leaking military secrets but eventually told investigators that he was recruited by Chinese intelligence in 2017 during a visit to Yanji, the capital of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province, to meet his contacts.

According to military prosecutors, the official claimed he was detained by Chinese officials at the Yanji airport and offered a chance to work for a Chinese intelligence agent in exchange for his family’s safety.

Military prosecutors indicted the official on Tuesday on charges of bribery, aiding the enemy and violating the Military Secrets Protection Act by leaking classified information.

While the official said he began selling military secrets in 2017, prosecutors said they were able to confirm he had received payments since 2019 and leaked classified information since June 2022, two years before counterintelligence officials caught wind of his suspicious activities.

Total payments to the suspect that have been tracked thus far by South Korean counterintelligence amount to 160 million won ($120,000).

Prosecutors said the suspect gathered secrets by taking photos and screenshots of information on computer screens at the Defense Intelligence Command’s headquarters in Seoul, which he then uploaded to a Chinese cloud server at home.

Prosecutors noted the suspect tried to avoid arousing suspicion by logging into the cloud server with different accounts, locking uploaded files with passwords and regularly erasing records of his communications.

The secrets he leaked included a list of the Defense Intelligence Command’s undercover agents, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said the suspect maintained direct contact with his Chinese handler through voice messages on a video game accessible through WeChat, the dominant messaging app in China.

Despite the sensitive nature of the leaked information, the suspect has not been accused of treason or espionage, as those charges are reserved for people whose actions are explicitly intended to aid or abet North Korea.

Military sources said that the ultimate recipients of information leaked by the suspect have not yet been determined, but they are not excluding the possibility that the suspect’s Chinese handler could be an informant for the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the North’s main spy agency.

Undercover South Korean intelligence agents abroad usually work on gathering intelligence on the North.

The case could reinvigorate calls for Seoul to stiffen penalties for all people who leak state secrets to foreign agents.

In its current wording, the Espionage Act only makes it illegal to spy for an “enemy country,” which is usually interpreted to refer to North Korea.

The National Security Act, which forbids “praise, incitement or the propagation of activities of an anti-state organization,” is also currently applied against only people suspected of conducting pro-North Korea activities.

But its use as a tool of political repression by the military dictatorships of the 1970s and 80s has led liberals to call for safeguards against its abuse or outright abolition.

By contrast, both People Power Party leader Han Dong-hoon and former National Assembly Deputy Speaker Kim Young-joo have said the scope of South Korea’s counter-espionage laws should be expanded to cover leaks to other countries besides the North.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]