More than 15 agents lost in China since 2010, spy network ruined completely: CIA

YemenExtra

M.A.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has lost about 20 informants and agents in China since 2010, New York Times reported on Saturday.

No less than 12 people were killed, including one of them shot in the backyard of a government building in front of his colleagues. This was considered a signal for other assumed spies.

Some informants were arrested. Overall, CIA lost from 18 to 20 agents in the People’s Republic of China during the period between 2010 and 2012.

NYT’s sources describe positions of U.S. intelligence located in China as being the weakest over the past decades. Chinese government was also capable of dismantling a spy network that took years to be established.

Investigators are bluntly divided over the cause behind such a failure. Some believe that a mole within the CIA assisted Chinese authorities detect the spy network. Others suggest that the Chinese managed to hack the ulterior system that the CIA used to communicate with its foreign sources.

An investigation was formed against one of the former CIA employees; however, he has never been charged due to lack of evidence, so the investigators eventually dropped the case.

The exact reasons of U.S. intelligence exposure in China have remained questionable.