A San Diego jury has recently convicted two US Navy sailors of espionage and related charges for passing sensitive military information to Chinese intelligence contacts, closing a case that spotlighted vulnerabilities inside America’s fleet.

The arrests came in August 2023 , when the Department of Justice revealed that Machinist’s Mate 3rd Class Jinchao Wei (also known as Patrick Wei) and Construction Electrician 2nd Class Wenheng Zhao (also known as Thomas Zhao) were under investigation for selling information about Navy operations. Both were stationed in California—Wei aboard the amphibious warship USS Essex (LHD-2) and Zhao at Naval Construction Group 1 in Port Hueneme.

Court documents later showed that Chinese intelligence officers had posed as “researchers” or naval enth

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