It has been revealed that a current sergeant, who is suspected of selling military secrets related to the South Korea-U.S. joint exercises to the Chinese military's intelligence organization, is of Chinese origin.
According to the indictment submitted by military prosecutors to the office of Representative Gang Dae-sik of the People Power Party's National Defense Committee on the 26th, Sergeant A was born in 2003 in China to a Korean father and a Chinese mother.
Sergeant A spent most of his time growing up in Beijing, China, except for about five months living in South Korea in 2008. He lived with his maternal grandparents, and it was found that his maternal grandfather was a retired officer of the Chinese Rocket Force who retired in 2005.
He joined the army in December 2023 and served as a supply soldier in a front-line unit. After posting a photo of himself in military uniform on Chinese social media, he was connected to an operational team belonging to the Tianjin Operations Office of the Military Intelligence Department of the People's Liberation Army of China.
During his vacation in August last year, Sergeant A met a member of the Chinese intelligence organization in Beijing and was recruited as an informant, agreeing to pass on military secrets through a smartphone IP transmission program.
Upon returning to his unit, Sergeant A received instructions to find and send documents related to the South Korea-U.S. joint exercise 'Eulji Freedom Shield' (UFS) and was investigated for sending the relevant materials using the unit's PC.
The document sent by Sergeant A was prepared by the U.S. military and disseminated to the South Korean military, containing the names of U.S. military bases, plans for troop reinforcements, and the locations of targets that could be struck with precision in case of emergency.
Additionally, it was found that he also transferred personal information such as the affiliation, rank, name, and contact details of personnel responsible for the South Korea-U.S. joint exercise, as well as a list of manuals from the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command to China.
Sergeant A was found to have received 88,000 yuan (approximately 17 million won) through Alipay from the Chinese intelligence organization between August of last year and February of this year in exchange for the military secrets related to the South Korea-U.S. joint exercise.
Sergeant A, who was caught in the counterintelligence investigation, was arrested on the 18th of last month and was indicted on charges including general treason in mid this month.