Spy Probe Lasted a Year

Attempting to build evidence of a plot to steal government secrets for China, the FBI planted a closed-circuit television camera in a Downey home to monitor the owners’ computer, according to an agent’s affidavit.

The tactic was part of a yearlong FBI investigation that employed virtually every surveillance tool available to U.S. counterintelligence agents, according to records and interviews Friday. Agents also conducted court-authorized “surreptitious searches” at the Downey home of Chi Mak and his wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, and intercepted Chi Mak’s e-mail, the affidavit said.

The actions, approved by the nation’s top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, led to the arrests of Chi Mak and Chiu and of his brother, Tai Wang Mak, and his wife, Fuk Heung Li, who live in Alhambra. The FBI affidavit alleges that the arrests Oct. 28 stopped Chi Mak’s brother and sister-in-law from traveling to China with encrypted CDs that included stolen government information.

Chi Mak and his wife, who are from China, became naturalized U.S. citizens 20 years ago. Tai Wang Mak, a broadcast director for a North American television channel catering to Chinese viewers, and his wife entered the United States from China in May 2001 and are lawful permanent residents.

Authorities allege that the two couples were foreign intelligence agents who attempted to smuggle documents revealing military secrets, including propulsion technology for U.S. warships. Chi Mak, according to the FBI, is the lead project engineer on a Power Paragon research project involving the Navy’s Quiet Electric Drive propulsion system, a technology so sensitive that it has been banned from export to certain countries, including China.

As authorities continue to analyze hundreds of documents seized a week ago by the FBI, a federal prosecutor said in a Santa Ana courtroom Friday that counterintelligence officials are still attempting to assess the potential damage to national security.

“No determination has been made as to the extent of its sensitivity,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Deidre Z. Eliot told Magistrate Judge Marc L. Goldman.

Eliot declined to discuss the case outside the courtroom, but authorities previously alleged that Chi Mak has been stealing documents and transmitting them or taking them to China for more than 20 years.

Goldman set Chiu’s bail at $300,000, despite the government’s arguments that she posed a flight risk because she had more than $387,000 in eight bank accounts and an extensive history of overseas travel.

Goldman said it was unclear to him “how serious the allegations are.”

Chi Mak, who was ordered held without bail earlier this week, is expected to be back in court next week along with co-defendant Li. A bail hearing for his brother, Tai Mak, is set for Monday.

Attorneys for the defendants did not return calls for comment.