More than half of Chinese spies arrested or charged by the U.S. authorities over the past four years have committed acts of espionage for more than three years, documents from the U.S. Department of Justice shows.

One agent managed to obtain classified information of F-35 combat aircraft at the mere price of USD2,000, while another was said to have disbanded the whole CIA spy network in China in exchange for hundreds and thousands of dollars.

The former was a Singaporean national named Dickson Yeo, who pleaded guilty in July to acting under the direction of Chinese intelligence to obtain sensitive information from the U.S. Court document said Yeo had used his fake consulting company to collect information for China, targeting particularly at American military and government personnel.

In 2015, Yeo reached a job seeker, from whom he obtained part of the classified information of the F-35 jet. China has plagiarized the F-35 design for its own FC-31 stealth fighter, reports suggested.

The U.S. sentenced the 39-year-old to 14 months in jail for acting as an illegal agent of a foreign power.

Former CIA officer Jerry Lee pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to spy for China starting in 2010 after he left the U.S. intelligence agency. He was said to have dismantled the entire CIA spy network in China in exchange for USD100,000 from Chinese agents, leading to the death or imprisonment of 20 informants.

Over half of the arrested Chinese spies were linked with China’s Ministry of State Security or the People’s Liberation Army.

The Trump administration has announced 47 espionage cases relating to China, which involved at least 82 people. Over 60% of the cases covered the span of three years, among them over 70% of the agents have started spying against the U.S. since the Obama administration.

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