Key facts
- Two former Chinese soldiers indicted for leaking secrets from South Korean and U.S. military.
- One suspect allegedly wiretapped South Korean and U.S. bases 13 times, collecting 13.9 terabytes of data.
- The other suspect is accused of stealing joint military exercise data and leadership information.
- The suspects allegedly operated between March 2024 and August this year, and November 2021 to May this year respectively.
- One suspect worked at an eavesdropping unit in China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) for about 40 years.
- The other suspect was a former member of the PLA's special forces unit.
Two former Chinese soldiers have been indicted in South Korea on charges of leaking military secrets from both the South Korean military and U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), according to legal sources. The indictments were announced by the Pyeongtaek branch of the Suwon District Prosecutors Office.
One of the indicted individuals, described as a 60-something operative who served for approximately 40 years in an eavesdropping unit of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), is accused of wiretapping major South Korean and U.S. air and naval bases 13 times between March 2024 and August of this year. This suspect allegedly collected 13.9 terabytes of intercepted data and smuggled it to China.
The second suspect, a 45-year-old former member of the PLA's special forces, faces charges related to stealing data from South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises and leadership information on 12 separate occasions. This individual reportedly recruited a civilian worker and soldiers at Camp Humphreys, a U.S. military base in Pyeongtaek, while running a military supply shop nearby from November 2021 to May this year. The suspect is also accused of using a mobile phone to photograph weapons movements inside Camp Humphreys.