Ex-Student Gets 8 Years for Spying for Chinese Government

CHICAGO (AP) A former Chicago graduate student was sentenced to eight years in prison Wednesday for spying for the Chinese government by gathering information on scientists and engineers in the U.S. with knowledge about aerospace and satellite technology.

A federal jury in Chicago in September convicted Ji Chaoqun, 31, of conspiracy to act as an agent of Chinas Ministry of State Security without notifying the U.S. attorney general, acting as a spy in the U.S., and lying on a government form about his contacts with foreign agencies.

The charges alleged that Ji was targeted by agents with the Ministry of State Security, or MSS, shortly before he came to the U.S. in 2013 to study engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.