Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Today's day is Wednesday, April twenty fifth, twenty eighteen. The
Speaker 2: time is three twelve pm. The following is a consensual
Speaker 2: body recording with the subject G Chow Chuen. The recording
Speaker 2: starts now.
Speaker 3: There's a guy sitting in a red Chevy Malibu in
Speaker 3: front of an apartment complex near downtown Chicago. He's waiting
Speaker 3: for someone to walk out of the apartment building. After
Speaker 3: a few minutes, the person does. He's young, and he's
Speaker 3: wearing a warm up jacket and glasses. He has a
Speaker 3: buzz cut. His name is G Chow Chun. The guy
Speaker 3: in the red car gets out, walks towards G and
Speaker 3: yells to him in Vandarin.
Speaker 4: You yes, hi Hi, How may I help you? He said,
Speaker 4: A good time to talk.
Speaker 5: I beg your pardon is something I like to.
Speaker 4: Talk to you about.
Speaker 6: We were all holding our breadth because this is that
Speaker 6: interaction that we've prepared for.
Speaker 1: The two men are being watched.
Speaker 6: Geez a little confused, little flustered, and you can see
Speaker 6: that in his body language.
Speaker 5: He keeps this distance.
Speaker 4: You are a fandom. An jine sent me to you.
Speaker 1: This reference to Nanjing it's code. It's a way of saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we know the same people. And G he understands it.
Speaker 5: Oh, I get it now. I think.
Speaker 6: At that point, Jee's demeanor relaxed and their body language
Speaker 6: got closer.
Speaker 5: He said to talk roughly, how long will it take?
Speaker 4: McCalls puck over there in red.
Speaker 5: No problem, No problem.
Speaker 1: The two men walked towards the red car and get in.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure if you are aware something went down
Speaker 4: with the friends in on Jean?
Speaker 5: I am not aware.
Speaker 4: Do you know whom I am referring to?
Speaker 1: She hesitates. The man pulls out his phone.
Speaker 4: Let me show you this.
Speaker 1: Shoey and Jean shoe Yan June.
Speaker 5: I have heard of him?
Speaker 4: Have you heard that something happened to him? Viciately, I
Speaker 4: am not aware.
Speaker 3: The stranger says his name is Chen and suggests that
Speaker 3: the two of them goes somewhere more private than this car.
Speaker 3: He says he has a room at the Hyatt, which
Speaker 3: is nearby. At first, G tries to get out of it.
Speaker 5: I really don't have time right now, I apologize.
Speaker 3: But Chen pushes back, This is.
Speaker 4: Important and people have to issues such as this. Talk
Speaker 4: with you. They come to me. But I do not
Speaker 4: want to talk too much about it, because okay, I understand.
Speaker 3: G gives in.
Speaker 6: They drive to the hotel, and it was immediate, let's
Speaker 6: start moving, let's start getting into place. So at that
Speaker 6: point I left for the hotel and got to the lobby.
Speaker 1: Chen parks the car and the two men walk into
Speaker 1: the hotel.
Speaker 6: I am simply a spectator sitting near the hotel bar
Speaker 6: and jok my afternoon. But my true goal is to
Speaker 6: keep my eyes on the two individuals that are briskly
Speaker 6: walking into the hotel lobby and making their way to
Speaker 6: the elevator.
Speaker 1: The two men take the elevator up to a room.
Speaker 1: G sits down at a small table at the foot
Speaker 1: of the unmade bed.
Speaker 6: We'd already got into the hotel room and pleased a camera.
Speaker 1: Chen takes off his coat and drapes it over a chair.
Speaker 1: He's dressed like an accountant, a blue button down khakis
Speaker 1: and a cell phone holster. He closes the curtains, but
Speaker 1: that plunges the room into complete darkness, so he reopens them.
Speaker 1: They both laugh awkwardly.
Speaker 3: Chen sits down. He pulls a sheet of paper out
Speaker 3: of his pocket, unfolds it, and hands it across the table.
Speaker 3: It's a recent article from a Belgian newspaper. Chinese spy
Speaker 3: arrested in Brussels at the request of the United States.
Speaker 3: The spy is Shoe Yan June, the same person Chen
Speaker 3: name dropped a G back in his car. G knows
Speaker 3: Shoe Yan June well. Shoe works for China's Ministry of
Speaker 3: State Security, or MSS, and so does G. Both of
Speaker 3: them are spies.
Speaker 6: We were aware of G Chao chun relationship with his
Speaker 6: MSS handler Zu Yanjin. Our goal was to use the
Speaker 6: information that his handler was arrested.
Speaker 1: Chen tells G that the friends in Nanjing don't know
Speaker 1: how Hue Yan Jean's cover was blown.
Speaker 4: We do know if the problem was with your communications
Speaker 4: with them. We don't know why is the US onto him.
Speaker 4: So I was sent to let you know to stop
Speaker 4: contacting them for now.
Speaker 3: Okay, Chen warns G you could now be in danger.
Speaker 3: He hands GA cell phone. He says G should only
Speaker 3: contact him from now on and only on this device.
Speaker 6: Your handler was arrested. Don't talk to anybody else this time.
Speaker 6: Any information that you need to relay back should go
Speaker 6: through me.
Speaker 3: Chen's making it clear I am now the only person
Speaker 3: you can trust.
Speaker 4: So they sent me here to talk to you, but
Speaker 4: at this time, please stay low key. Don't send them
Speaker 4: any test messages, don't send them recheck messages, don't email them,
Speaker 4: because we don't know where things went wrong, So like
Speaker 4: nothing had happened at normal.
Speaker 5: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: The two men leave the hotel room and Chan drives
Speaker 1: G back to his apartment. Before G gets out of
Speaker 1: the car, Chen makes sure he has the cell phone.
Speaker 4: Did you crap the cell phone? Yes, it's in my pocket.
Speaker 4: Thank you for your help. Give me a bit of time.
Speaker 4: Don't tell anyone about.
Speaker 5: This, okay.
Speaker 1: The whole interaction lasts about two hours. Chan drives off
Speaker 1: parks and speaks into a hidden microphone.
Speaker 2: Today day is April twenty fifth, twenty eighteen. The time
Speaker 2: is five three pm, ending the consentual monitoring.
Speaker 3: What G didn't know that afternoon was that this stranger
Speaker 3: off the street who knew his name and his biggest secret,
Speaker 3: was actually an undercover FBI agent, and the person watching
Speaker 3: them was an agent two.
Speaker 1: A lot of what the undercover agent had said to
Speaker 1: G was a lie, but one key detail was true.
Speaker 1: Hue Yen June, G's MSS handler had been.
Speaker 7: Arrested, who announced federal criminal charges for conspiracy to commit
Speaker 7: economic espionage and theft of trade secrets che in.
Speaker 4: Federal court in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: Chue wasn't just G's handler. He was running MSS operations
Speaker 1: all over the world, and he was at the center
Speaker 1: of one of the most significant spy rings the FBI
Speaker 1: has ever taken down.
Speaker 3: The MSS is believed to be the world's largest intelligence agency,
Speaker 3: but the people who work there are basically ghosts. We
Speaker 3: rarely learn their names, and even when we do, it's
Speaker 3: usually an alias. Chu Yen June was the first intelligence
Speaker 3: officer ever to be lured out of China, arrested and
Speaker 3: tried in the US.
Speaker 8: We had never been able to convict in the United
Speaker 8: States and put in prison a staff MSS officer, so
Speaker 8: it was very clear to me that we were making history.
Speaker 3: What this case cracked open for the first time was
Speaker 3: a view from inside the MSS, revealing thousands of pages
Speaker 3: of emails, chats, audio recordings, classified Chinese government documents, even
Speaker 3: Chu's personal diary.
Speaker 1: It was just strange the way he kept records of everything,
Speaker 1: not only what happened, but his own feelings about them.
Speaker 7: I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt,
Speaker 7: no question of his life. And that's the unicorn.
Speaker 1: At the heart of Hugh's mission was an advanced technology
Speaker 1: that China has been after for years, one that has
Speaker 1: proven uniquely difficult to copy, much lesser pass ready to
Speaker 1: take offs about to takeo the jet engine.
Speaker 9: The jet engine one of the marvels of this century
Speaker 9: of marbles.
Speaker 1: It was a marvel when it was invented over eighty
Speaker 1: years ago, and it still is today. Only a few
Speaker 1: countries in the world know how to make them really well.
Speaker 10: China has said this is a national priority that we
Speaker 10: get this information. The MSS was tesked to do it.
Speaker 10: It fell down to Huey Nun at that time.
Speaker 4: He's right out of Central Casting ju.
Speaker 8: Is basically out there trying to steal corporate secrets. Is
Speaker 8: doing that with the full support and cooperation of his government.
Speaker 10: He did it multiple times over multiple years, right through
Speaker 10: extensive network around the world.
Speaker 4: These are things that could be catastrophic.
Speaker 11: The idea that we could get shoe it opens up
Speaker 11: so many doors to understanding what the Chinese government is
Speaker 11: up to and what information they have about us, how
Speaker 11: they work.
Speaker 4: It's like a once in a lifetime of opportunity.
Speaker 8: Because the American people truly understood the scope of Chinese
Speaker 8: espionage inside the United States right now, they'd be shocked,
Speaker 8: they'd be outraged.
Speaker 12: It's the people of the United States who are the
Speaker 12: victims of what amounts to Chinese theft on a scale
Speaker 12: so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of.
Speaker 1: Wealth in human history.
Speaker 10: Stealing American technology, giving it to Chinese companies who can
Speaker 10: then undercut American companies and Americans go out of business.
Speaker 10: That is their stated goal. They want to replace the
Speaker 10: United States as the world's only superpower, and they're on
Speaker 10: track to do what their claiming they're going to do.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of change and straight up chaos happening
Speaker 3: right now, some of it manned up being noise, but
Speaker 3: we are witnessing the formation of a new world order,
Speaker 3: and one thing's clear. China is the new economic and
Speaker 3: military superpower alongside the US. The two countries have been
Speaker 3: going head to head for the last few decades. Not
Speaker 3: that long ago, the US was still ahead of China
Speaker 3: in almost every advanced technology. That time has passed, China's
Speaker 3: caught up in so many ways, thanks to a ton
Speaker 3: of investment, talent, innovation, and one more thing spying. From
Speaker 3: Bloomberg News and iHeart Podcasts. This is the Sixth Bureau.
Speaker 3: I'm Jordan Robertson and.
Speaker 1: I'm Drake Bennett. This is a story of the inner
Speaker 1: workings of one of the world's most mysterious and powerful
Speaker 1: spy agencies, in how one man's ambition and mistakes opened
Speaker 1: its vault of secrets.
Speaker 9: On the next episode, we are in the business of
Speaker 9: exploiting your weakness, your needs, your vulnerabilities, and we're good
Speaker 9: at it.
Speaker 1: That recording was almost dumb luck. I cannot believe they
Speaker 1: didn't turn that recording off.
Speaker 7: The helicopter that the Marine Corps is going to fly,
Speaker 7: the next level helicopter. There's no reason that the Chinese
Speaker 7: governm needs to know the specifications of that. There's no
Speaker 7: reason an employee of any American company should be prepared
Speaker 7: to pass that sort of information over