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The sales of intelligence agency data raised awkward questions as the nation is expanding military information sharing with the United States.
An official at South Korea’s top military intelligence agency leaked classified data, including a list of undercover operatives, to a suspected Chinese intelligence agent for years in exchange for cash, defense officials said Friday.
The 49-year-old civilian employee at the Korea Defense Intelligence Command was arrested last month and formally indicted Tuesday on charges including bribery and handing over sensitive data, via documents or voice messages, 30 times since 2019.
The leaked information included a list of undercover agents from the command who were operating in China, Russia and other countries, military prosecutors said at a briefing this week, according to the defense ministry. The command specializes in spying on North Korea, a heavily militarized country that often threatens its southern neighbor.
The leak has raised awkward questions for South Korea because it comes at a time when the country is expanding military intelligence sharing with the United States and Japan to help guard against North Korea and China. South Korea and the United States have depended on each other to spy on North Korea, combining resources such as satellites, cyber intelligence and human agents, like those working for the command.
The leak, first uncovered in June, has prompted the Defense Intelligence Command, one of South Korea’s most secretive government agencies, to recall undercover agents based overseas back home.
Undercover agents have been active in China, where they have tried to recruit spies and collect intelligence among North Koreans who traveled there or among ethnic Koreans in China who often traveled to North Korea. But their undercover identities were sometimes exposed and they became targets of the authorities in China as well as undercover North Korean counterintelligence agents operating there.
