Chinese authorities announced on Friday that a public servant who found himself with large debts due to failed cryptocurrency investments had been sentenced to life in prison for selling state secrets to an unidentified foreign intelligence agency.

According to a post on Baidu by the Ministry of State Security (MSS) — the Chinese Communist Party’s secret police and intelligence agency — the official, pseudonymised as Wang Moumou, was recruited after posting online about his financial difficulties.

Wang “posted on an online forum seeking a part-time job due to heavy debts, openly stating his identity as a public servant,” stated the MSS.

“Soon, he was contacted by an overseas individual who offered a substantial reward in exchange for "paid information" such as production tasks and research progress from his workplace,” the agency added.

It said Wang initially “provided a small amount of internal information in exchange for the reward” before he began to consider “how ‘a few photos and documents could bring in a lot of money,’ [and] his rationality gradually faded. His greed and the hope of getting away with it took over, and his illicit activities grew bolder and bolder.”

According to the MSS, Wang provided “top-secret and confidential national information to foreign parties,” for which he received “over 1 million yuan ($138,000) in espionage funds through methods such as virtual currency recharge and trading.”

The organisation Wang was employed by was not disclosed. The MSS described it as a “certain classified institution” (某涉密单位) an intentionally ambiguous phrase which is typically used to cover a range of national security entities, from the MSS itself through to research departments.

In the MSS post on Baidu, it stated that Wang’s workplace “did not strictly enforce security management protocols and protective measures, creating an opportunity for him to steal and leak classified information to foreign intelligence agencies.”

It stressed to Chinese citizens that if they suspect espionage activities, they were encouraged to promptly report the incident via a number of routes.

Although the Ministry of State Security is called a ministry, unlike other Chinese government departments its logo does not feature the five stars of the People’s Republic of China flag, but the Communist Party’s hammer and sickle.

While the total headcount of the agency is not publicly known, it is believed to be the largest intelligence agency in the world with estimates suggesting more than 100,000 employees based in a large number of relatively autonomous branches located throughout China.

Alongside its internal security work, the MSS has been accused of cyber operations targeting Chinese dissidents abroad, as well as of stealing intellectual property to benefit Chinese companies domestically, and targeting political institutions to gain strategic intelligence.