A former U.S. Navy sailor has been sentenced to more than 16 years in prison for spying for China and selling sensitive military information.

Jinchao Wei, 25, also known as Patrick Wei, was sentenced to 200 months in federal court after a jury found him guilty of multiple espionage-related offences in August 2025.

Wei was arrested in August 2023 as he arrived for duty aboard the amphibious assault ship U.S.S. Essex at Naval Base San Diego, the Pacific Fleet’s homeport.

He was accused of providing national defence information to a Chinese intelligence officer in exchange for more than $12,000.

After a five-day trial and one day of jury deliberations, Wei was convicted on six counts, including conspiracy to commit espionage, espionage, and illegally exporting and conspiring to export defence-related technical data in violation of U.S. arms export laws. He was acquitted on one count of naturalisation fraud.

U.S. authorities said Wei had betrayed his oath as a service member and compromised national security.

Senior justice officials stated that his actions endangered the United States and fellow sailors by passing sensitive Navy information to a foreign intelligence service for personal gain.

According to evidence presented at trial, Wei served as a machinist’s mate and held a U.S. security clearance. This gave him access to sensitive information related to the Essex, including its weapons systems, propulsion, and desalination equipment.’

Wei was first contacted on 14 February 2022 by a Chinese intelligence officer through social media. The officer initially claimed to be a naval enthusiast working for a Chinese state-owned shipbuilding company.

Despite suspecting that the individual was linked to Chinese intelligence, Wei continued communicating and later moved the conversations to encrypted messaging applications.

Between March 2022 and August 2023, Wei provided photographs and videos of the Essex, shared information about the locations of U.S. Navy ships, and described the ship’s defensive capabilities and technical issues.

He also transferred thousands of pages of restricted technical and operational documents taken from U.S. Navy computer systems.

In one instance, Wei sold at least 30 technical and operating manuals related to U.S. Navy systems. These manuals contained export-control warnings and detailed systems such as power generation, steering, weapons control, aircraft and deck elevators, and damage control.

In total, he provided around 60 manuals, along with additional photographs and documents, to the Chinese intelligence officer.

The court heard that Wei received more than $12,000 in payments over 18 months. Evidence included encrypted messages, audio recordings, handwritten payment receipts, and records showing how the two communicated and attempted to conceal their activities.

Wei used multiple encrypted apps, deleted messages, relied on digital “dead drops,” and used electronic devices supplied by his handler.

During interviews after his arrest, Wei admitted that he had shared export-controlled and sensitive Navy documents and acknowledged that he knew his actions were wrong. He described his activities as espionage and confirmed that he had tried to hide what he was doing.

Reference: US Navy