[JURIST] A Chinese woman who is a permanent resident of New Orleans pleaded guilty Wednesday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana [official website] to charges of aiding and abetting espionage by passing national defense information to Chinese agents. Yu Xin Kang [CICentre materials] could face 10 years in prison for acting as an intermediary between Louisiana businessman Tai Kuo and Defense Security Cooperation Agency [official website] analyst Gregg William Bergersen. Kang allegedly passed classified military information to Chinese foreign officials. AP has more. The Times-Picayune has local coverage.

Bergersen was charged [affidavit, PDF] and arrested [JURIST report] in February and later pleaded guilty [DOJ press release; JURIST report] to conspiracy for disclosing national defense information. Kuo also pleaded guilty to conspiracy and could be sentenced to life in prison. In a separate Chinese espionage case, officials arrested Dongfan "Greg" Chung, a former Chinese-American engineer at Boeing [corporate website], in February for allegedly stealing corporate trade secrets related to aerospace programs and turning them over to China [JURIST news archive]. Chung's arrest was reportedly related to the case of Chi Mak [CI Centre backgrounder; JURIST report], a Chinese-American engineer sentenced [JURIST report] in March for conspiring to smuggle sensitive naval intelligence data to China.