An American journalist was arrested on charges of spying for China. There is evidence against him of smuggling important information. Later, he admitted to the charge of embezzlement during police interrogation. In the trial, the journalist was sentenced to two years in jail. The verdict was announced by the Alexandria federal court in Virginia on Tuesday.
In February this year, the FBI arrested 50-year-old Thomas Pauken alias Tom McGregor from a hotel in Washington. According to the sources, he was in regular contact with a Chinese woman. Thomas is accused of smuggling sensitive American information to the woman, an agent of China's spy agency MSS. He would get money in return. The FBI told the court that from 2019 to 2026, Thomas tried to collect information from several important and sensitive institutions of the US government at the direction of Chinese spy agency officials. In return, he received about 1 crore rupees in Indian currency.
Thomas is believed to have come across the MSS while working in Beijing for various state-run news agencies in China. Meet the woman. He admitted all the allegations during the police interrogation and later during the court hearing. On Tuesday, the court ordered, the accused American journalist should be under police surveillance for the next three years in addition to the two-year prison sentence!