Since the theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos, CSIS had continued to expand its activities in the United States. Many of China’s accredited diplomats in its Washington embassy, various consulates, and trade missions throughout the United States were either full-time intelligence officers or directly linked to the service. The FBI estimated that in 2005 the number of CSIS agents and informers was larger than any other foreign intelligence service operating within the country. Since Los Alamos they had between them obtained, either by theft or deception, an estimated $35 million worth of secrets, mostly from technology companies working in or for the defense industry. FBI Director Robert Mueller, had ordered that all the firms be briefed on improving their security and that organizers of technology conferences, which had always attracted Chinese scientists, were instructed on “how to recognize a possible CSIS agent.” Universities were asked to provide details of courses “and other interests” of the thirty thousand Chinese students on their campuses after the FBI established that CSIS had paid for an increasing number to study in America; many were attending postgraduate courses at universities like UCLA, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. After graduating, often in computer or science-related subjects, they had applied for jobs at companies with sensitive defense contracts. A former senior FBI officer, Ted Gunderson, who had worked on counterterrorism out of the Los Angeles field office, told the author: “The students are taught how to steal, photocopy, and return valuable blueprints and secret contracts and smuggle them out past the security guards. The material is often on microfilm inserted into a tooth cavity or swallowed to be excreted later in one of the many safe houses CSIS has around the country.”
Meir Dagan’s now-close relationship with Porter Goss enabled the backdoor channel to be used to provide details of what Mossad knew about CSIS activities in the United States. Both intelligence chiefs knew much of the material was too politically sensitive to pass on to the White House or the State Department until there was absolute proof of espionage.
In October 2005, a Los Angeles–based
The details were passed by Meir Dagan to Porter Goss down the backdoor channel. A major FBI operation was mounted. On October 27, the day before Chi Mak was to fly out of Los Angeles with his wife, Rebecca, along with two other members of the spy ring—Chi Mak’s brother, Tai Wang Mak, and his wife, Fuk Heung Li—the two couples were arrested at Chi Mak’s home in Downey, California.
Federal officers discovered what one FBI agent, James E. Gaylord, described as “a house full of secrets.” They would turn out to be the most damaging espionage operation against the United States since the theft at Los Alamos. Hundreds of thousands of documents and computer printouts were found in Chi Mak’s home. Both he and his wife were naturalized American citizens who had arrived in the United States in May 2001. The CSIS spy ring was already in place. But Chi Mak set about upgrading its activities. He obtained a job as an engineer with Power Paragon. It gave him access to highly classified weapons systems, including blueprints of the new Virginia-class submarines and the Aegis battle-management systems, which are the core of U.S. Navy destroyers, cruisers, and aircraft carriers. Chi Mak, an electronics engineer with what the FBI called “advanced computer skills,” had stolen material that would give China superiority if the United States went to the defense of Taiwan in any conflict with the Beijing regime.
Neighbors described Chi Mak and his wife as “polite but reserved” and “regular folk who lived quiet lives.” Short of calling them “pillars of our society,” they fitted the standard profiles of deep-cover agents, no different from the untold numbers who toiled every day in the dark and always dangerous world of secret intelligence. For them it was over. But how long before the next spy scandal came? When it did, Meir Dagan was determined it would not be Mossad caught pillaging secrets.
