A former intelligence officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday for spying on behalf of China.

Ron Rockwell Hansen, 60, pleaded guilty in March to attempting to steal and deliver military secrets to the Chinese government. Though his plea deal called for a 15-year prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Dee Benson decreased the sentence in light of Hansen’s cooperation with the government.

Hansen, who held a top secret clearance for several years and had a background in signals and human intelligence, was approached by Chinese intelligence agents in early 2014 who offered him more than $300,000 per year in exchange for information he collected at industry conferences, according to the criminal complaint.

Hansen’s case fits a recent trend of China recruiting former U.S. intelligence officers, particularly those struggling financially, to pass along government secrets. The sentencing also comes amid the U.S. increasingly sounding the alarm on China’s espionage abilities through state- and private- owned companies and through students and scientists.

“There simply are no words to accurately and fully express the depth of regret I have for my decisions and actions. I am so sorry,” Hansen said in Salt Lake City courtroom. “I would give anything to go back and change this.”

Hansen, fluent in Mandarin and Russian, retired from the U.S. Army in 2006 and was hired by the Defense Intelligence Agency as a civilian intelligence case officer. He resigned from the position less than a year later, but performed contract work for the U.S. government until late 2011 that allowed him access to classified defense information.

From late 2012 to June 2018, Hansen’s only consistent source of income was his military pension of $1,900 per month. He was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and had maxed out his credit card limit.

In his plea agreement, Hansen admitted to meeting regularly with Chinese agents and to soliciting information from a U.S. intelligence officer that Chinese spies “would find valuable.”

“I advised the [Defense Intelligence Agency] case officer how to record and transmit classified information without detection, and I explained how to hide and launder any funds received as payment for classified information,” he said in the plea agreement.

The case officer reported Hansen’s approach to the FBI, which began its investigation in 2014. According to the criminal complaint, the FBI had already been suspicious of Hansen who had tried to gain access to classified information after he left the Defense Intelligence Agency and his repeated offers to work as a double agent against China.

In June 2018, Hansen met with the case officer, who had then become an informant for the FBI, and was given classified documents related to U.S. military readiness in a particular region. Hansen took notes on the documents, then planned to travel to China where he would provide the information to Chinese intelligence agents, the Justice Department said. Hansen was arrested later that day while he was on his way to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to board a flight to China.

Though Hansen was originally indicted on 15 charges related to espionage, he pleaded guilty to only one charge of attempting to transmit defense information.

“One of three ex-US intelligence officers recently convicted of acting on behalf of the People’s Republic of China, Ron Rockwell Hansen received hundreds of thousands of dollars for betraying his country and former colleagues,” assistant Attorney General of National Security John Demers said in a statement. “These cases show the breadth of the Chinese government’s espionage efforts and the threat they pose to our national security."