Petty Officer 3rd Class Wenheng Zhao during a field training exercise at Fort Hunter Liggett, Calif., in 2019. Zhao, who had since risen in rank to petty officer 2nd class, was sentenced to more than two years in prison and kicked out of the Navy for passing sensitive information about the U.S. military to China. (Michael Lopez/U.S. Navy)
A sailor who passed sensitive information about the U.S. military to China was sentenced this week to over two years in prison and kicked out of the Navy, according to federal prosecutors in California.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Wenheng Zhao, 26, of Monterey Park, Calif., received a prison term of 27 months on Monday from U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner in Los Angeles.
He had pleaded guilty in October to taking nearly $15,000 in bribes from a Chinese intelligence officer for information about Navy operational security, critical infrastructure and military exercises.
The information Zhao sold included plans for a major exercise in the Pacific, a dozen photographs of computer screens showing operational orders of military training exercises, and several photographs of diagrams and blueprints for a radar system at a U.S. base in Okinawa, Japan, according to court documents.
A China-born naturalized U.S. citizen who uses the first name Thomas, Zhao was stationed at Naval Base Ventura County in Port Hueneme and worked as an electrician, installing and repairing electrical equipment at various military installations, according to the Justice Department and court documents.
He had a security clearance and entered restricted military installations to collect and record sensitive, nonpublic information, which he sold to the Chinese official, the DOJ said.
Zhao initially faced a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. As part of a plea deal, he waived his right to appeal any sentence shorter than five years and three months.
“Mr. Zhao betrayed his solemn oath to defend his country and endangered those who serve in the U.S. military,” Matthew Olsen, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s national security division, said in a statement Monday, when the sentence was announced.
Between August 2021 and May 2023, Zhao received at least 14 payments totaling $14,866 for the information, which he transmitted with sophisticated encrypted communication methods, the DOJ said.
He also destroyed evidence and hid his relationship with the Chinese intelligence officer, according to the statement.
Larissa Knapp, the executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch, said the case is further proof that China is waging “an aggressive effort” to undermine the security of the U.S. and its allies, a charge Beijing has rejected in the past.
“The Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly shown it will freely break any law or norm to achieve a perceived intelligence advantage,” Knapp said in the statement. “Today’s sentencing demonstrates yet again the inability of China’s intelligence services to prevent the FBI and our vital partners from apprehending and prosecuting the spies China recruits.”
