Mysterious Bank Deposits Fueled Suspicion of Former C.I.A. Officer
mole in recent years, they discovered that one former agency officer had received hundreds of thousands
of dollars in unexplained bank deposits, current and former government officials said on Wednesday.
Sometime after he returned to Hong Kong, current and former officials said, American intelligence agencies spotted the suspicious bank activity.
Former officials say Mr. Lee had access to information that could have helped the Chinese figure out the identities of the American informants.
It was a devastating blow to the C.I.A.’s ability to collect intelligence in China
and is regarded inside the government as one of the worst compromises in modern American intelligence.
Some argued that sloppy tradecraft was to blame or suggested
that the Chinese government had cracked the encrypted system that American spies used to communicate with their informants.
It helps explain why many American law enforcement officials suspected
that Mr. Lee had provided information to China — a suspicion for which no direct evidence has surfaced.