Chinese spy charged with economic espionage
Benjamin Glassman announced the arrest of Chinese intelligence officer Yanjun Xu, in connection with conspiring to steal trade secrets from the U.S.
Kareem Elgazzar, Cincinnati Enquirer
- Navy reservist Raymond Zumba pleaded guilty to bribery for paying to have a civilian contractor to create fake Navy IDs.
- Zumba offered $3,500 for two fake IDs, claiming they were for his wife’s Chinese-born parents.
- Zumba also suggested a sham marriage scheme for financial gain, raising national security concerns.
- The incident occurred amidst heightened awareness of Chinese attempts to infiltrate the U.S. military.
A U.S. Navy reservist has pleaded guilty to paying for a civilian contractor at Naval Air Station Jacksonville to create bogus Navy ID cards for two Chinese immigrants, one in the country illegally.
Raymond Andres Zumba, 27, could face up to 15 years behind bars for bribery of a public official, the charge he admitted to July 2 in Jacksonville’s federal court.
Zumba, who formerly served on the Mayport-based destroyer USS Carney, told an ex-shipmate the cards were “for immigration purposes to show that the … [card holders] were married to service members,” according to a complaint filed in February.
“Mr. Zumba, is that what you did?” U.S. Magistrate Judge Monte Richardson asked the defendant wearing a jail-issued jumpsuit.
“Yes, your honor,” Zumba answered.
This could be a particularly delicate time to admit charges like that.
On June 27, federal agents arrested two people in Houston and Portland, Ore., charging them with illegally acting as Chinese agents helping China’s intelligence service identify sailors who could become their assets.
The June arrests didn’t involve Zumba, but U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi remarked after charges were filed that the pair’s case “underscores the Chinese government’s sustained and aggressive effort to infiltrate our military and undermine our national security from within.”
Zumba’s case grew from a discussion he had over Snapchat in January with a former shipmate from the Carney about getting IDs that the U.S. Attorney’s Office described in a release as “real, but unauthorized identification cards.”
The ex-shipmate was married to a civilian contractor working in a NAS Jacksonville office that issues IDs for servicemembers and families to enter the base, which is closed to the public.
The ex-shipmate reported Zumba’s offer to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and helped agents build a case. Neither the shipmate nor his spouse are named in court records.
Zumba, who lived in New York following his active-duty military service, offered $3,500 for the ex-shipmate’s spouse to make ID cards that Zumba said would be used by his wife’s Chinese-born parents.
Zumba also said the ex-shipmate and his spouse could make $35,000 each by being part of sham marriages to Chinese immigrants trying to become permanent U.S. residents, or “green card” holders.
Zumba said his in-laws were interested in getting IDs for military relatives, called dependent cards or USIDs, to get innocent things like access to on-base shopping, according to court records. But the records also said Zumba remarked that “if this deal was successful, then other individuals would also be interested in obtaining USIDs.”
Zumba also reported the cards were for immigration purposes, according to the original complaint in February said.
But that filing added that Department of Homeland Security photo databases identified one of the two in-laws as a native of China who had already been naturalized as a U.S. citizen. The databases identified the other as a Chinese national “unlawfully present in the U.S.,” according to the original complaint from February. The complaint also said Zumba sent the shipmate a photo of the woman’s naturalization certificate with a different first name.
Court records refer to the man and woman Zumba was speaking for as “the Chinese buyers” and don’t say whether they were in fact the reservist’s in-laws.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Mesrobian said after Zumba’s plea that he couldn’t say whether they’re related.
The ex-shipmate arranged in February for his spouse to meet Zumba, the would-be passholders and a translator after normal work hours to prepare the IDs, collecting photos and fingerprints for the cards, court records said.
The ex-shipmate and Zumba met the next day to exchange the IDs for the $3,500 outside a restaurant where the female buyer and the translator had lunch. The two men finished their transaction and joined the lunch, where police and federal agents arrested Zumba.
It’s not known whether the Chinese buyers or others tied to Zumba are facing charges as well but the docket from Zumba’s prosecution doesn’t t reflect any related cases.
This story was updated to refine headlines and add information.