Navy Admiral warns Russian and Chinese nationals are trying to infiltrate US military bases

National security is being threatened by a wave of Chinese and Russian nationals sneaking into US military bases, a top Navy admiral has warned.

U.S. Fleet Commander Daryl Caudle said infiltration attempts are happening “two or three times a week” at naval bases alone.

Last year, more than 100 attempts were made by Chinese nationals alone, with the perpetrators often claiming to be innocent tourists when caught.

“The penetration of our military bases by foreigners is happening more and more,” Caudle told Fox News.

“This is Russian, it’s Chinese, it’s from all these different countries.”

An unnamed illegal Chinese national was arrested at California’s twenty-nine Palms Marine Corps base in March after ‘disobeying orders to leave’

“Often they have passports, they have papers, but they are not authorized in any way to be on our base and it is very difficult for us to determine the underlying motive in these types of cases.”

Agents from Communist China have been caught diving near Cape Canaveral, hiked to a missile launch site in New Mexico and claimed they were looking for Holiday Inn when they were caught at an Army base in Alaska.

In 2019, three Chinese nationals were sentenced to prison for illegally taking photos of military infrastructure at the NAS Key West naval base in Florida.

That same year, two Chinese citizens were deported from the U.S. after attempting to drive to Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story in Virginia Beach, the Virginia Pilot reported.

But most foreigners who are caught are charged, given small fines and asked not to return, because trespassing is generally not considered a federal crime.

“This is something we see probably two or three times a week, where we stop these people at the gate, and this is just the Navy,” Caudle said.

‘And usually the cover story is: I’m a student, I’m an enthusiast, I want to see the ships and things like that. “We need to turn them around and normally we’ll get NCIS involved, we’ll get biometrics from possible ones.”

Concerns about Beijing’s intentions have soared in response to an 8,000 percent increase in the number of Chinese nationals known to have crossed the southern border in the past three years.

It comes amid an 8,000 percent increase in the number of Chinese nationals known to have crossed the southern border in the past three years

More than 24,000 have been intercepted in the current fiscal year, the House Committee on Homeland Security reported last month, and more asylum applications have been approved for Chinese migrants than for any other nationality.

Emily Harding, a former official at the Senate Intelligence Committee, told WSJ that the Chinese spy operation is more of a numbers game.

“The advantage of the Chinese is that they are willing to throw people into the collection in large numbers,” she said.

Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., claims even ordinary Chinese tourists are being urged by their government to spy on trips to the U.S.

“If a few of them get caught, it will be very difficult for the U.S. government to prove anything other than trespassing, and those who don’t get caught will likely collect something useful.”

The Navy was rocked in January when Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao, 26, was sentenced to 27 months in prison after spying for China for more than 18 months at the Ventura County Naval Base in California.

The officer was arrested at the same time as fellow naturalized citizen Jinchao Wei, who was captured aboard the San Diego-based USS Essex and is on trial on espionage charges in December.

But Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., of the House Oversight Committee, said even ordinary Chinese tourists were being pressured by their government to capture items of military importance during trips to the U.S.

“If you’re talking about the number of Chinese crossing the southern border, not that they’re all doing intelligence research here, but if it increases by a factor of 80 in one year, you have to wonder what’s going on. here,” he told Dailymail.com last week.

“So it’s particularly important because it’s so easy to get in here now. I mean, essentially the United States has an open border.

Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao, 26, was sentenced to 27 months in prison after spying for China for more than 18 months at California’s Ventura County Naval Base

Jinchao Wei, a fellow naturalized former Chinese citizen, was arrested aboard the USS Essex in August and will be tried in December on espionage charges.

“There’s no more tempting time for a foreign country to come in here and say, ‘let’s poke around and get information about American military bases.’

“Why would any country send people here taking pictures of military bases or whatever, unless it’s in preparation or as a result of an act of terrorism, or even concerned about war,” the Wisconsin lawmaker added.

“If you came to the United States, either for work or for tourism reasons, I don’t think you would hang out outside military bases.”

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in DC has dismissed claims that Chinese nationals are targeting US bases as “purely ill-intentioned fabrications.”

“We urge relevant US officials to abandon the Cold War mentality, stop baseless accusations and do more things conducive to increasing mutual trust between the two countries and friendship between the two peoples,” said Liu Pengyu.