N.O. resident pleads guilty in Chinese spy case

Editor's note: This is what you call an active epionage network.

by David Hammer, The Times-Picayune
Tuesday May 13, 2008, 8:25 PM

A U.S. citizen who hailed from Taiwan and lived in southeast Louisiana for decades pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to pass American military secrets to the Chinese government.

Tai Shen Kuo, 58, a businessman who made a name and wealth for himself in more than three decades in Houma and New Orleans, is being held up by the U.S. Justice Department as representative of a new spying threat from China.

"Today's guilty plea is the latest demonstration of the serious threat posed by international espionage networks," said Patrick Rowan, the U.S. acting assistant attorney general for national security.

Kuo signed the plea deal Tuesday in Virginia, agreeing to one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government. The crime carries a possible life sentence, although Kuo's attorney said prosecutors agreed to recommend a lighter sentence.

Kuo signed a statement saying he cultivated a friendship with a Pentagon weapons analyst, gathered secrets about U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan and other American military interests, and passed them along to an unnamed Chinese government official.

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