TAMPA, Fla.—A Florida engineer has pleaded guilty to acting as a Chinese agent to collect intelligence on dissidents and U.S. nonprofits and firms.
Li Ping, a 59-year-old U.S. citizen born in China, on Aug. 23 admitted to conspiring to act as a Chinese agent since at least 2012.
Under the direction of the Ministry of State Security, China’s top intelligence gathering agency, Li collected a wide range of information on the targets of the Chinese regime, including pro-democracy activists, practitioners of the persecuted faith group Falun Gong, and his former employer, U.S. telecom giant Verizon, court filings and his LinkedIn profile show….