Former Senior Adviser For Federal Reserve Charged With Spying For Communist China: Feds

A former senior adviser for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (FRB) was arrested on Friday for allegedly conspiring to steal trade secrets for communist China.

Federal prosecutors charged 63-year-old John Harold Rogers, a U.S. citizen with a Ph.D. in economics, with conspiracy to commit economic espionage and with making false statements.

Rogers worked in the Division of International Finance of the FRB from 2010 until 2021, “where he was entrusted with confidential FRB information,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. “The confidential information that Rogers allegedly shared with his Chinese co-conspirators, who worked for the intelligence and security apparatus of China and who posed as graduate students at a PRC university, is economically valuable when secret.”

Prosecutors explained that the data Rogers allegedly shared with his co-conspirators could allow China to manipulate the U.S. market in a manner that they described as “similar to insider trading.”

“Gaining advance knowledge of U.S. economic policy, including advance knowledge of changes to the federal funds rate, could provide China with an advantage when selling or buying U.S. bonds or securities,” the statement said.

Prosecutors said that under the guise of teaching classes in China, Rogers began stealing trade secrets and bringing them to the communist nation starting in at least 2018 in exchange for a $450,000 salary as “a part-time professor at a Chinese university.”

When he was questioned in 2020 by federal investigators, he allegedly lied to them, which they said “had a material impact” on the investigation.

“President Trump tasks us with protecting our fellow Americans from all enemies, foreign and domestic. As alleged in the indictment, this defendant leveraged his position within the Federal Reserve to pass sensitive financial information to the Chinese government, a designated adversary,” said U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin Jr. for the District of Columbia. “Let this indictment serve as a warning to all who seek to betray or exploit the United States: law enforcement will find you and hold you accountable.”

Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office said, “As alleged in the indictment, Rogers betrayed his country while employed at the Federal Reserve by providing restricted U.S. financial and economic information to Chinese government intelligence officers.”

“This information could allow adversaries to illegally gain a strategic economic advantage at the expense of the U.S.,” he said. “This indictment sends a clear message that the FBI and our partners will hold accountable those who threaten our national security.”