Former U.S. Navy sailor Jinchao Wei, 25, was sentenced to 200 months in prison on Monday for selling technical data on American ships to Chinese intelligence agents.
Wei, a naturalized citizen born in China, who also uses the name Patrick Wei, was arrested in August 2023 when he arrived for work at Naval Base San Diego, home port for the Pacific Fleet, where his assigned ship the USS Essex was docked.
The Essex is a Wasp–class amphibious assault ship, essentially a small and versatile aircraft carrier that can support helicopters and jets with vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capability. Ships in the Wasp class also have extensive facilities for supporting roughly 2,000 amphibious assault troops.
Wei was a machinist’s mate on the Essex and held a security clearance, which gave him access to a great deal of sensitive information about the highly advanced ship’s weapons, engines, and other systems.
According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Wei was recruited by Chinese intelligence on social media in February 2022. The Chinese agent who approached Wei passed himself off as a friendly “naval enthusiast” at first, but DOJ trenchantly noted that Wei almost certainly knew he was dealing with a Chinese Communist spy from the first moments of their encounter, especially since his new friend worked for a state-owned Chinese shipbuilding company.
Just over a week after linking up with this Chinese “naval enthusiast” online, Wei told a colleague in the U.S. Navy that he was in communication with an “extremely suspicious” person who was asking a lot of pointed questions about “the maintenance cycle of naval ships.”
If Wei was ever fooled by the Chinese agent’s overtures, the maximum duration of his befuddlement was eight days. When the Chinese agent offered to pay him $500 for a tour of the San Diego naval base, Wei told his other friend that he was “no idiot,” and the setup was “quite obviously f**king espionage.”
Wei accurately concluded that he was “on the radar of a Chinese intelligence organization,” but he did not exactly play hard-to-get. Instead, he moved his correspondence with the Chinese intelligence agent to an encrypted messaging platform, and made it clear he had a lot more than leisurely strolls on the piers of San Diego to sell.
DOJ cited evidence that Wei sold his Chinese correspondent photos and videos of the Essex, provided detailed descriptions of its weapons and maintenance issues, and provided “thousands of pages of technical and operational information” about U.S. Navy surface vessels, which he procured from restricted computer systems. He also gave the Chinese agent information about the movement of other Navy ships.
The indictment noted that many of the documents Wei sold to Chinese intelligence were clearly marked with “conspicuous export-control warnings,” and his online conversations with his handler made it clear he knew exactly what he was doing. He frequently discussed methods of keeping their relationship secret with his handler, who he referred to as “Big Brother Andy.” U.S. counterintelligence was able to positively establish “Andy’s” identity as a Chinese intelligence officer.
Wei was paid over $12,000 for his services between March 2022 and August 2023, and “Andy” was offering even more lucrative compensation, including a paid trip to China for Wei and his mother.
After he was arrested, Wei admitted that he knew he was engaged in “espionage” and had labored to conceal his activities from the Navy and law enforcement. His pithy comment to the FBI agents who arrested him was, “I’m screwed.”
Wei was convicted on six of the seven counts he faced by a federal jury in August, including two counts of espionage and four counts of violating the Arms Export Control Act, but was acquitted on a charge of unlawfully procuring American citizenship. His lawyers unsuccessfully argued that he performed only low-level maintenance work on the Essex and most of the data he sold to Chinese intelligence was available online.
Wei was dishonorably discharged from the Navy in late 2025 and, on Monday, a federal judge in San Diego sentenced him to almost 17 years in prison.
“Wei swore loyalty to the United States when he joined the Navy and reaffirmed that oath when he became a citizen. He then accepted the solemn responsibility of protecting this Nation’s secrets when the United States entrusted him with sensitive Navy information,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg on Monday.
“He made a mockery of these commitments when he chose to endanger our Nation and our servicemembers by selling U.S. military secrets to a Chinese intelligence officer for personal profit,” Eisenberg said of Wei.
“This active-duty U.S. Navy sailor betrayed his country and compromised the national security of the United States. The Justice Department will not tolerate this behavior,” said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Wei was arrested at the same time as another Chinese-American sailor, 26-year-old Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao, who was convicted of giving sensitive U.S. military information to a Chinese intelligence agent and sentenced to 27 months in prison in January 2024.
“Make no mistake, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is engaged in an aggressive effort to undermine the national security of the U.S. and its partners,” FBI National Security Branch Executive Assistant Director Larissa L. Knapp warned when Zhao was sentenced.
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