CHICAGO _ A former FBI special agent who worked for years in Chicago's organized crime division has been charged with stealing sensitive government documents and hoarding them in his home after retirement.
Yen Cham Yung, who achieved top government security clearance during his lengthy career, was arrested in Colorado earlier this week and is scheduled to be brought to Chicago to face the charges.
Yung, 57, was accused in a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday of illegally keeping hundreds of documents without consent, including sensitive information about undercover informants, surveillance of gang activity and email threads between FBI supervisors concerning organized crime investigations.
The complaint also alleged Yung violated national security protocols by keeping a copy of a memorandum of understanding between the CIA and FBI "regarding the activities of those agencies overseas and domestically."
The memorandum had been accessed in 2009 at the Chicago FBI headquarters by someone using Yung's credentials, according to the complaint.
The charges do not allege Yung sold or disseminated any of the information.
The materials were first uncovered in August after Yung's wife filed an order of protection against him and she began searching their Colorado Springs home for "documents related to their separation," according to the complaint.
The FBI later executed several search warrants at the home and other locations and found dozens of digital storage devices that are believed to have sensitive government information on them, according to the complaint.
Yung joined the FBI in 1996 and worked in field offices in Chicago, Hawaii, Washington, D.C., and Indonesia, according to the complaint. He was given top security clearance when serving as an FBI liaison to the Defense Department's Northern Command in Colorado Springs.
Yung retired in 2016, according to the complaint.
As of Tuesday, the court docket did not reflect whether Yung had hired an attorney.
