Former CIA agent Jerry Chun-shing Li was sentenced to 19 years in prison on Friday for spying for Beijing.

The security officer admitted to a court judge in the Eastern District of Virginia of the conspiracy to provide China with national defense information.

How did he do it?
The story started from the phone of his house, which rang in Hong Kong. After leaving Lee as a CIA officer in 2007, he moved to live in Hong Kong.

Li picked up the phone, only to find that a Chinese intelligence officer offering him $ 100,000 in exchange for Chinese intelligence would receive "lifelong" sponsorship for his cooperation.

The offer was so tempting that Lee immediately created a document on his laptop describing where the CIA assigned its officers to their missions, positions and time frame for sensitive CIA operations.

He did not stop there. He wrote his own handwritten memoirs of his work at the CIA, including intelligence and real names for clients, meeting places related to security operations, telephone numbers and information about secret facilities.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars were subsequently deposited into Lee's personal bank account between 2010 and 2013 for his services.

The court ruled
Li was on a list of suspected names for providing China with information about a network of US agents that Beijing dismantled between 2010 and 2012.

The FBI subsequently searched the Lee hotel room in Hawaii in August 2012 and found that he had an address book and a notebook with notes he had written in his hand during CIA work before 2004.

Lee finally admitted in May to plotting to provide national security information to help a foreign government, and the court sentenced him to 19 years in prison.

Khan his own
`` Instead of assuming that responsibility, and fulfilling his commitment not to divulge national defense information, Lee sold his country and conspired to become a spy for a foreign government, and then repeatedly lied to investigators about his behavior, '' federal prosecutor Zachary Teruelegger said.

John Brown, assistant director of the FBI, said there were "serious implications" for Lee.

"He betrayed his country and put his former colleagues at risk," said Timothy Slater of the FBI. "His punishment today is commensurate with the gravity of his treason and his crime."