Michigan Man is Guilty in Chinese Spy Case

Glenn Shriver, a 28 year old man from Michigan, has pleaded guilty to a single offense of conspiring to provide national defense information to Chinese intelligence officers. In court, the man acknowledged that he had received $70,000 from Chinese agents in payment for trying to secure jobs with the CIA and U.S. Foreign Service.

Court papers show that Shriver was in a study abroad program in Shanghai for two years, in which he studied and became fluent in Mandarin. After graduating from college, he returned to Shanghai to seek work. His answer to an advertisement looking for people to write a paper on U.S.-Chinese relationships caught the eye of Chinese intelligence officers, who recruited Shriver as a spy. Shriver was encouraged to seek U.S. government jobs that would give him access to classified documents.

Shriver attempted to join the Foreign Service but failed the test twice. He received money $30,000 from Beijing for the two attempts. He then tried for a job with the CIA’s clandestine service and was paid $40,000 in cash by the Chinese government for doing so. Shriver spend two years going through the CIA hiring process but his nefarious plans were discovered.

His attorney, G. Allen Dale, says that Shriver was just a naïve young man who had been taken advantage of and that he had never actually been hired into a position that exposed him to any sensitive information. The prosecution says that Shriver threw away his education and his future, and betrayed his country, when he chose to deal with the Chinese government. Shriver’s guilty plea requires the judge to impose the prosecution’s recommended four year prison term.