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A former U.S. Army helicopter pilot was sentenced to 20 months in prison this week for spying on behalf of China’s communist regime.
Shapour Moinian was sentenced on Nov. 7 for his part in accepting thousands of dollars from representatives of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in exchange for providing the regime with classified aviation-related information taken from his defense contractors who employed him.
“This was industrial espionage, bordering on military espionage. … These were extremely serious offenses against the United States,” said Judge Jeffrey Miller at the sentencing.
Moinian served in the U.S. Army from 1977 to 2000, according to a Justice Department statement on the sentencing. After his service, he worked for various cleared defense contractors in the United States as well as the Department of Defense itself. “Cleared” means that the contractors were permitted to work on projects involving classified information.
A man in China who claimed to be a technical recruiter reached out to Moinian in 2017.
