US intelligence found four more Chinese balloons believed to be used for espionage. A week after the discovery of the wreckage of one of them, the special services were unable to identify all the sensors of the device, writes The Washington Post, citing leaked secret documents.
The first balloon in American intelligence was codenamed “Killin-23”, the leaked files also mention two more probes discovered two years earlier – “Bulger-21” and “Accardo-21”. The documents refer to incidents with the passage of one device over a US aircraft carrier strike group, as well as the fall of a third in the South China Sea. The materials of the special services do not specify whether they are talking about Bulger-21 and Accardo-21.
A WP interlocutor among officials explained that the balloons were named in alphabetical order by the names of known criminals. The listed devices were given the names of gangster Tony Accardo, leader of the Irish group James “Whitey” Bulger and mafia boss Donald Killin.
The situation with allegedly reconnaissance Chinese probes became public knowledge at the end of January this year, when the military discovered several balloons in US airspace and shot them down. After that, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken canceled a visit to Beijing.
American intelligence found that the incident with the devices came as a surprise to the Chinese government, and the intelligence program was highly classified within the Chinese military without proper oversight from the leadership. In addition, there were those in the Chinese government who criticized the Foreign Ministry’s response to the crisis.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry continues to claim that the discovered devices were weather balloons.
Source: Rosbalt
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