Speaker 1: A couple quick notes before we get started. Throughout the
Speaker 1: rest of the series, you'll hear people refer to GE.
Speaker 1: They're usually talking about a division of the General Electric
Speaker 1: Company that made aircraft engines, GE Aviation. Today it's an
Speaker 1: independent company called GE Aerospace. So you'll hear people use
Speaker 1: all these terms and they basically mean the same thing. Also,
Speaker 1: this is the third episode of this series. If you
Speaker 1: missed the first two, we recommend going back and listening
Speaker 1: in order. Thanks.
Speaker 2: Do you know what that is?
Speaker 3: It's loud.
Speaker 4: It's loud, Drake.
Speaker 5: You want to talk about where we are and what
Speaker 5: we're seeing.
Speaker 1: We're at the Paris Air Show, and that noise in
Speaker 1: the background is kind of advanced fighter jet doing loops
Speaker 1: above us in the sky all around us. Wow. The
Speaker 1: Paris episode takes place every two years. It's been happening
Speaker 1: since nineteen oh nine, almost as long as airplanes have existed.
Speaker 1: It's held at Le Bourges Airport, which is actually where
Speaker 1: Charles Lindbergh landed after his famous flight across the Atlantic
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty seven. A century later, this airport still
Speaker 1: gets to be for a week the center of the
Speaker 1: aviation world.
Speaker 6: This is the greatest repository of knowledge about the industry
Speaker 6: you're going to find on a global basis.
Speaker 1: This is Richard Abolafia, a consultant in the aviation industry,
Speaker 1: and who are some of the biggest companies here.
Speaker 6: The charismatic megafauna are the airframers. So you've got following Airbus, Lockeyed, Martin,
Speaker 6: folks like that. And then you've got the engine ecosystem
Speaker 6: led by General Electric and to well dozens and hundreds
Speaker 6: of thousands even of companies going down to.
Speaker 4: The second, third, and fourth tier of the supply chain.
Speaker 5: People are here to network and to show off. There
Speaker 5: are all these huge exhibition halls full of booths displaying
Speaker 5: products like control systems, landing gear, radar transponders. Outside aircraft
Speaker 5: are lined up along the taxiway, shining in the bright
Speaker 5: sun in all their glory. There's all sorts of eye
Speaker 5: candy here in all directions. But we spent the majority
Speaker 5: of our time looking at one thing, the.
Speaker 1: GE nine X aircraft engine. It's the most powerful commercial
Speaker 1: jet engine that's ever been made.
Speaker 5: The GE nine X, made by GE Aerospace is outside
Speaker 5: on its own little stage with its own security guards
Speaker 5: and a velvet rope. First it's huge.
Speaker 1: It's gigantic. I mean, at its widest the sort of
Speaker 1: intake fan blade section is almost twelve feet in diameter,
Speaker 1: so you can see inside it, and it looks really complicated.
Speaker 1: I even having done the reporting we've done, like, can't
Speaker 1: make much sense of what I'm looking at, honestly, But
Speaker 1: if you did have a little bit more of technical proficiency,
Speaker 1: like Richard, who definitely has a little more technical proficiency
Speaker 1: than we do, and he says, jet propulsion is actually
Speaker 1: pretty straightforward. It boils down to four words.
Speaker 4: Suck, squeeze, burn, blow.
Speaker 1: Suck, squeeze, burn, blow.
Speaker 6: You're sucking air in, you're squeezing it, you're compressing it
Speaker 6: in several stages of a compressor.
Speaker 4: Burn, of course, is the combustor that's an engine, just
Speaker 4: like a car engine. It's burning fuel.
Speaker 6: And then blow, of course, is what comes out the
Speaker 6: back that gives you your propulsion.
Speaker 1: Simple and yet really hard to perfect, because making an
Speaker 1: engine is one thing. Making it light enough and powerful
Speaker 1: enough to fly through the air is another. Making money
Speaker 1: on it is another, and having everyone land safely at
Speaker 1: the end of the day every single time is still another.
Speaker 1: The steaks are incredibly high, so being able to make
Speaker 1: engines like this puts ge into a very exclusive club.
Speaker 6: There are only three companies and two countries in the
Speaker 6: entire world that can build a decent commercial jet engine,
Speaker 6: General Electric and Bratton Whitney of the US and Rolls
Speaker 6: Royce in Britain.
Speaker 1: None of those companies you'll notice are Chinese. There are
Speaker 1: all sorts of areas where Chinese companies have caught up
Speaker 1: with and surpassed their Western competitors. Today, a smartphone made
Speaker 1: by China's Huawei is just as advanced as an iPhone,
Speaker 1: and a bid electric car is on par with the
Speaker 1: Tesla and a fraction of the price. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to commercial aviation and commercial jet engines, no dice.
Speaker 5: Obviously, the Chinese government wants to change that. They claim
Speaker 5: that their latest fighter jets already rival Americas, and China's
Speaker 5: state owned airplane maker Comac is currently making commercial planes
Speaker 5: meant to compete with Airbus and Boeing. But Chinese passenger
Speaker 5: jets are still heavily reliant on tech from Western companies,
Speaker 5: which makes the Paris Air Show a very compelling destination
Speaker 5: for a certain type of government employee. What about spy
Speaker 5: so vice.
Speaker 4: There's no question, there's no question. You know you re
Speaker 4: enter Shoe.
Speaker 7: Yeah, June.
Speaker 1: Shoe was here back in twenty seventeen. But of course
Speaker 1: to get to the Paris Ara show, he and his
Speaker 1: colleagues had to take precautions. They used a front company
Speaker 1: to get their visas and they didn't fly directly to France.
Speaker 8: June seventeenth, early morning, flew to Athens.
Speaker 1: They flew into Athens FBI specialises in Bradley Hall.
Speaker 3: They went to Santorini where they rented a villa.
Speaker 7: June eighteenth, took ferry to Santorini.
Speaker 3: We have photos of the villa. In the view from
Speaker 3: the villa, it was, it was stunning. We also have
Speaker 3: photos of them in the hot tub with what appeared
Speaker 3: to be narcotics.
Speaker 4: We also have.
Speaker 3: Photos of them with women, some in the hot tub,
Speaker 3: some and other locales. So basically it looked like these
Speaker 3: five or six MSS officers who were on this trip
Speaker 3: were a bunch of lads out.
Speaker 4: On the lash.
Speaker 3: To use the British term for right. They were there
Speaker 3: to party, so that if anybody was watching them, they
Speaker 3: wouldn't look like a group of MSS officers there to
Speaker 3: do spycraft. They looked like a bunch of guys doing
Speaker 3: a big European trip where you you drink, you corrouse,
Speaker 3: et cetera.
Speaker 1: The lads out on the lash, as Bradley would say,
Speaker 1: partied their way through Venice, Verona, Florence Rome.
Speaker 3: And ultimately, after five days of what we call a
Speaker 3: surveillance detection route, the team determined they were clean. They
Speaker 3: bought tickets for cash at the airport June.
Speaker 7: Twenty second through to Paris and.
Speaker 3: Went straight to the Paris Air Show. We could see
Speaker 3: which gate they entered. We know they spent a lot
Speaker 3: of time around an area where the one of the
Speaker 3: US Predator drones was set up. We have a couple
Speaker 3: images of that. They had at least two meetings with
Speaker 3: other individuals, either at the Paris Airshow or around the
Speaker 3: Paris air Show, and that's what they were there to do. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: they were there to mix and mingle, and they certainly
Speaker 3: seem like they did.
Speaker 5: On top of all that, Shoe had another job to do.
Speaker 5: He had to go shop it for his boss.
Speaker 7: One briefcase, two LaCosta T shirts.
Speaker 5: For his boss's boss or his boss's boss's wife, one
Speaker 5: new meal.
Speaker 7: Purse, one Zanga belt, one Amblo.
Speaker 5: Brislet and for the Big Boss. Shoe really splashed out two.
Speaker 8: Bottles in the toll, one Zaya clutch, one box of macaron.
Speaker 5: He spends thousands of euros and yet when he gets home,
Speaker 5: it's clear his gifts don't get the reaction he was
Speaker 5: hoping for.
Speaker 7: When to work, gave on all the gifts didn't buy enough.
Speaker 1: It was a small enough thing, but it bugged him
Speaker 1: and it was one of a growing number of indignities
Speaker 1: he suffered. In twenty seventeen, the year marks the kind
Speaker 1: of inflection point for Shoe. He begins to struggle at
Speaker 1: work and also at home, but that same year he
Speaker 1: would get introduced to a new source, the kind of
Speaker 1: source that could change everything.
Speaker 9: This is going to be the highlight of Shoe's career.
Speaker 9: This is going to be the recruitment that is going
Speaker 9: to set him aside from all of his peers. This
Speaker 9: is big. This is a very big thing.
Speaker 5: From Bloomberg News and iHeart Podcasts. This is the Sixth Bureau.
Speaker 5: I'm Jordan Robertson and I'm Drake Bennett. Throughout twenty seventeen,
Speaker 5: Shoe's personal life was in the dumps. She really starts
Speaker 5: to sound like he's stuck reading his diary. You can
Speaker 5: see him questioning his life choices.
Speaker 8: May nineteenth, feeling agitated in the past couple of days,
Speaker 8: feeling like I'm abandoned by the whole world. Work, relationship, money,
Speaker 8: none of it is going well.
Speaker 5: On the romance front. He'd been spending a lot of
Speaker 5: time with one of his mistresses, someone he worked with
Speaker 5: at the MSS, actually the one he called Peach in
Speaker 5: his diary. But now things with Peach were taking a turn.
Speaker 8: April twenty eighth, message to the Peach, but didn't receive
Speaker 8: a nding reply. Not going to reach out anymore speaking
Speaker 8: of a relationship, Peach obviously doesn't care anymore, not even
Speaker 8: replying to messages.
Speaker 7: Breakup is real.
Speaker 5: As the summer wore on, things only got worse.
Speaker 8: August seventeenth, Peach heartless, saw me in the rain yesterday morning,
Speaker 8: walked by with her umbrella without stopping. She did not
Speaker 8: sit next to me at the breakfast either. I reached
Speaker 8: out to her on which had after she was very
Speaker 8: cold toward me. I feel like I was humiliating myself.
Speaker 5: Things weren't going any better for you financially.
Speaker 8: I lost it so much in star market, and I
Speaker 8: tucked myself into a financial hole.
Speaker 7: What a shame? Feeling so terrible? When does it all end?
Speaker 5: Work also sucked. Shoe's boss, joh Rom had been a
Speaker 5: mentor to him for years, but now Shoe felt taken
Speaker 5: for granted much twenty.
Speaker 8: Sevens John rejected new receipt. Today such an ungrateful person
Speaker 8: has no shame. I will have my revenge.
Speaker 3: He would get promoted and then be berated. He would
Speaker 3: have an amazing case and get a beautiful end of
Speaker 3: the year review and then be crushed a week later
Speaker 3: because a decimal point was wrong on a receipt.
Speaker 8: April twenty eight, relationship with Jaw has dropped a below
Speaker 8: freezing point.
Speaker 7: John underminded me, I need to adjust my.
Speaker 3: Mindset so that that yo yoing between your great and
Speaker 3: you're terrible clearly was having an impact on his state
Speaker 3: of mind.
Speaker 8: During dinner job when nuts and said I'm poor at
Speaker 8: a management draw has tended against me.
Speaker 7: Just like that.
Speaker 8: I think my relationship with him would never be the
Speaker 8: same again having a leader like this? What's the point?
Speaker 3: Life wasn't where he wanted it to be, even though
Speaker 3: compared to your average person, to be that high up
Speaker 3: within the MSS in China would seem like a pretty,
Speaker 3: you know, auspicious life. But my interpretation was that he
Speaker 3: didn't see it that.
Speaker 7: Way and low point in my life.
Speaker 8: Nothing works my way and the liears get their ways.
Speaker 1: But amidst all of this disappointment and humiliation, Shu did
Speaker 1: still have a job to do. He had hacks to
Speaker 1: manage and bosses to deal with. He had to keep
Speaker 1: finding new engineers to come give talks in Nanjing, and
Speaker 1: if you could find a really good one, it could
Speaker 1: turn his life, or at least his career around. He
Speaker 1: could get back on his feet.
Speaker 6: And he did.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't by hacking into a computer or breaking
Speaker 1: into a hotel room or doing some special spy thing.
Speaker 1: It was through a tool you've probably used yourself, something
Speaker 1: extremely ordinary.
Speaker 9: LinkedIn.
Speaker 1: Yeah. LinkedIn also known as one of the most boring
Speaker 1: places on the Internet, but not to the MSS.
Speaker 5: It was like a candy store.
Speaker 1: This is James Olsen, the former CIA officer we've been
Speaker 1: hearing from. He was also an expert witness for the
Speaker 1: prosecution in Shoe's case.
Speaker 9: LinkedIn is a wonderful spotting tool for the MSS.
Speaker 1: A spotting tool, meaning they go hang out on LinkedIn
Speaker 1: looking for sources for people who have access to the
Speaker 1: information they want, like aviation engineers, and with LinkedIn.
Speaker 9: We're handing it to them. They've got their resumes on there,
Speaker 9: they brag about the projects they've been working on. It's
Speaker 9: all right there.
Speaker 1: And that's where Shoe or someone at the sixth Bureau
Speaker 1: spotted the profile of a GE engineer named David John.
Speaker 9: He had access to very sensitive programs at G Aviation,
Speaker 9: working on this composite material, this lightweight technology.
Speaker 5: Remember that huge engine we stood next to at the
Speaker 5: Paris Air Show, the GE nine X. Well, part of
Speaker 5: what's so special about that engine is that key elements
Speaker 5: of it are made out of carbon fiber composite. When
Speaker 5: you make something out of carbon fiber, you can make
Speaker 5: it both lighter and stronger than if you've made it
Speaker 5: out of most any other material, say metal. And as
Speaker 5: you can imagine, details about how GE Aerospace uses carbon
Speaker 5: fiber are kept very tight. They're inaccessible even to most
Speaker 5: of the company's employees, but not to David Jun.
Speaker 9: And that's why when Shu saw this LinkedIn profile, he said, Bingo, Jackpot,
Speaker 9: exactly what they want, and I'm going to go get it.
Speaker 5: David was born and raised in a rural village in China.
Speaker 5: Being Chinese is also part of what made him an
Speaker 5: attractive target for the MSS. The MSS is known to
Speaker 5: specifically target Chinese people living and working abroad, people who
Speaker 5: might be susceptible to appeals to their sense of patriotism
Speaker 5: or threats to their family members back home. David was
Speaker 5: the first in his family to go to college, then
Speaker 5: moved to the US to get his engineering PhD in composites.
Speaker 5: He moved to Cincinnati in twenty twelve to work for
Speaker 5: what was then called ge Aviation and focused on a
Speaker 5: part of the engine called the fan containment case. We
Speaker 5: really wanted to talk to David John for the series.
Speaker 5: Drake and I have approached him multiple times over the
Speaker 5: years we've been reporting on this case. He's declined to
Speaker 5: talk to us each time. So there's a lot we
Speaker 5: don't know about him, but we do know LinkedIn is
Speaker 5: part of how Shoe and the MSS spotted him, and
Speaker 5: we know what they did next.
Speaker 1: They reach out. Obviously, shoot doesn't say Hi, I'm from
Speaker 1: the MSS, and I'd love to explore how we can
Speaker 1: collaborate to serve China. The MSS is smarter than that,
Speaker 1: so Shu doesn't even make the first contact. Instead, it's
Speaker 1: a dean at n UAA.
Speaker 2: Hello, I am sorry to bother you i phone. I'm
Speaker 2: in charter of the International Cooperation and Exchange Office at
Speaker 2: the Ninegenia University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. I learned from
Speaker 2: your alliging resume that you have accumulated wealth.
Speaker 9: The MSS recruited a respected person to make the first contact.
Speaker 9: That added to the likelihood that Xing would be impressed,
Speaker 9: would be flattered if someone of that stature would be
Speaker 9: reaching out to him personally.
Speaker 1: Many eminent talents like you Chen Poune continued come to
Speaker 1: NUAA to share their expertise.
Speaker 2: And UAA can pay for the cost of your trip
Speaker 2: back to China for the exchange. If you're interested, please
Speaker 2: feel free to contact me.
Speaker 1: David, it seems was flattered by the invitation.
Speaker 10: Chian for how are you? Thank you for email. I've
Speaker 10: been working at GE for over ten years after graduating
Speaker 10: with a doctorate in the US. I first worked for
Speaker 10: five years at G'SRND department, then into New twelve.
Speaker 1: Plus he already happened to be planning an upcoming trip
Speaker 1: to China at.
Speaker 10: The end of May to see my parents. My hometown
Speaker 10: is in Krujo when I passed by Nanjing. If time allows,
Speaker 10: I am happy to pay a visit to Nuaa. I
Speaker 10: can confirm once my itinery is finalized.
Speaker 5: The emails between David and Chen continue through the spring
Speaker 5: into early May, and as they do, Chen gets more
Speaker 5: and more specific about what he wants David to share
Speaker 5: on his talk, and even what it could be called.
Speaker 2: Application design and manufacturing techniques of compositive materials and aircraft
Speaker 2: engines composites.
Speaker 5: David's careful in his response. He says he can't discuss
Speaker 5: any proprietary information from his work, but before he goes
Speaker 5: to China he does something that will come back to
Speaker 5: haunt him. He copies about forty one thousand files off
Speaker 5: his GE work computer, and then, as he's getting ready
Speaker 5: for his trip, he transfers five of those files onto
Speaker 5: his personal computer, the one he's planning to take to China.
Speaker 5: At no point does he mention any of this to
Speaker 5: anyone at GE.
Speaker 1: On June first, twenty seventeen, David jun arrives in Nanjing.
Speaker 1: Chen Fung picks him up and takes him to his hotel,
Speaker 1: which is on the NUAA campus. The next morning, over
Speaker 1: tea in the hotel lobby, Chen Fun introduces him to
Speaker 1: a man who he says works with the university. He
Speaker 1: says the man's name is Chu Huei. Surprise, surprise, it's
Speaker 1: Chu Yen June. The group goes to lunch, then David
Speaker 1: gives his presentation to a room of about twenty five people.
Speaker 9: Jiang gave the talk, course raved about it, how smart
Speaker 9: he was, and they're asking questions.
Speaker 1: But David doesn't answer most of the questions because he
Speaker 1: says they touch on sensitive ge work.
Speaker 9: They're kind of probing. They're seeing how far he will go,
Speaker 9: whether he is someone who can be induced to talk
Speaker 9: more than he should.
Speaker 1: After the presentation, Chen Fong hands David cash three five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. He says it's for the talk and to
Speaker 1: cover his travel. At dinner that night, Chew huey aksu
Speaker 1: Yen June presents David with two boxes of fancy tea.
Speaker 1: They say they're goodbyes, and David heads back to the US.
Speaker 1: We reached out to NUAA and Chenfog for comment, but
Speaker 1: neither responded.
Speaker 5: Once David is home, Chew Huay messages him over wee
Speaker 5: chat to thank David for his talk. He invites him
Speaker 5: to come back soon.
Speaker 8: You're welcome to visit Nuanja again next year.
Speaker 5: Six months pass, Hue goes to the Paris Air Show,
Speaker 5: Peach breaks his heart. His boss continue used to write him,
Speaker 5: and then in December, David JHN says he's coming back
Speaker 5: to China.
Speaker 10: Hello, department, had Chew, It's been a while since we
Speaker 10: last caught up.
Speaker 5: David says he has another trip book and he seems
Speaker 5: eager to give another talk at NUAA. Shoe seems eager too,
Speaker 5: he responds just a few hours later, I.
Speaker 7: Will try my best to arrange it for you.
Speaker 8: Come Starbin Ninjin and we can't have a chat, well
Speaker 8: come back.
Speaker 5: As the messages continue, David repeatedly asks Shu what material
Speaker 5: he should bring with him to China. He no longer
Speaker 5: seems concerned about revealing sensitive GE information. Instead, his main
Speaker 5: concern seems to be giving Shoe what he wants for
Speaker 5: Shoe just had to feel like a huge break. He
Speaker 5: had an enthusiastic source inside GE working on one of
Speaker 5: the company's most coveted technologies, a potential gold mine. But
Speaker 5: David John wasn't writing these messages himself. He was being
Speaker 5: told what to say.
Speaker 3: We had to have the communication look authentic.
Speaker 9: And at this point of course they're actually talking to
Speaker 9: Bradley Hull, FBI Special.
Speaker 5: Agent Bradley Hall.
Speaker 3: We had to make the story seem as accurate and
Speaker 3: truthful as possible. I want it for my counterpart in
Speaker 3: the MSS to see and to read and think it's
Speaker 3: still my guy. He's still working for me. The goal
Speaker 3: of a good intel operation is to talk to the officer,
Speaker 3: you know, spy the spy.
Speaker 5: David was now working with the FBI. That's who Shoey
Speaker 5: and June was talking with, and he was falling for it.
Speaker 3: That's when you cast your line to see if they
Speaker 3: if they'll at least nibble, and they bit.
Speaker 1: On the next episode.
Speaker 3: Obviously, the guy's kind of in shock to FBI.
Speaker 4: People come walking in.
Speaker 3: So when I first thought, I wasn't sure what it
Speaker 3: was because it was a Mandarin and I saw a
Speaker 3: face in a military uniform, which makes it government.
Speaker 9: You're going head to head with the very smart people
Speaker 9: on both ends and each side has to be smarter
Speaker 9: than the other, and I can just see the jubilation
Speaker 9: with the FBI that he's coming our way.