A former Senior Adviser for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (FRB) has been indicted on charges of economic espionage.
According to the Justice Department, John Harold Rogers, a resident of Virginia, is at the center of the international espionage case.
The indictment alleges the sixty-three-year-old American citizen conspired to steal and trade information relating to the Federal Reserve on behalf of an agreement with the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
“The Chinese Communist Party has expanded its economic espionage campaign to target U.S. government financial policies and trade secrets in an effort to undermine the United States and become the sole superpower,” said Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office.
Former FRB advisor indicted on espionage claims
According to the court documents, Rodgers was a Senior Adviser in FRB’s Division of International Finance for a decade. Rodgers was also employed part-time by a Chinese university for a sum of approximately $450,000 as a professor.
“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,” said Assistant Director Kevin Vorndran of the FBI Counterintelligence Division. “This information could allow adversaries to illegally gain a strategic economic advantage at the expense of the U.S.
It is further alleged as part of the indictment that Rodgers shared confidential Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and FRB information to Chinese intelligence and security members posing as graduate students.
“Rogers met with his co-conspirators in hotel rooms in China where he conveyed sensitive, trade-secret information that belonged to the FRB and the FOMC,” said the Justice Department report.
“This indictment sends a clear message that those who deliberately misuse sensitive Federal Reserve information for their own personal gain and lie about it to investigators will be held accountable for their actions,” said Special Agent in Charge John T. Perez of the FRB-OIG, Headquarters Operations.
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