http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/washington/10spy.html By NEIL A. LEWIS The New York Times July 10, 2008 WASHINGTON - Gregg W. Bergersen was a Navy veteran who liked to gamble on occasion but spent far more time worrying about how to earn some serious money after he left his career as an analyst at the Defense Department. At 51 and supporting a wife and a child in the Virginia suburbs, he wondered how he could get himself cast in that distinctly Washington role many Pentagon types dream of: a rewarding post-retirement perch at one of the hundreds of military-related companies that surround the capital and flourish off lucrative government contracts and contacts. Mr. Bergersen believed he had found what he was seeking when he was introduced to Tai Shen Kuo, a native of Taiwan, who had lived in New Orleans for more than 30 years. Mr. Kuo, an entrepreneur who imported furniture from China, was active enough in civic affairs to have been named to a state advisory board on international trade. He told Mr. Bergersen that he was developing a defense consulting company. Now, Mr. Bergersen and Mr. Kuo, along with a third accomplice, are awaiting sentencing in a federal court for their involvement in one of many cases brought in the last year involving the illegal transfer of information to China. The cases have intensified the evaluation in intelligence and law enforcement circles about the breadth of the threat from Beijing. Many have been similar to the one involving Mr. Bergersen, in that prosecutors describe them as carefully planned intelligence operations run by the Chinese government intended to steal national security secrets. Other cases, however, are less clear in their nature; some seem to be closer to violations of commercial export laws, with the transferred information intended to provide Chinese companies a technological benefit. According to court papers and interviews, Mr. Kuo and his Chinese handlers ran what intelligence professionals call a "false flag" operation on Mr. Bergersen, a weapons systems analyst, making him believe that the information he was providing was going to Taiwan, an American ally, not Beijing. [...] _______________________________________________ Attend Black Hat USA, August 2-7 in Las Vegas, the world's premier technical event for ICT security experts. Featuring 40 hands-on training courses and 80 Briefings presentations with lots of new content and new tools. Network with 4,000 delegates from 50 nations. Visit product displays by 30 top sponsors in a relaxed setting. http://www.blackhat.comReceived on Fri Jul 11 2008 - 02:36:04 PDT
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