4. The Duck Analogy

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Who are we here to talk about? She and June. Jordan and I are in Cincinnati, across the table from FBI Special Agent Bradley Hall. You've been hearing Bradley talk about shoe over the last couple episodes, but now you're going to hear from him in a different way. You're going to hear about his own involvement in this case, which begins when GE Engine your David John comes back from his trip to China, the trip where he met Xu Yan June. When we sat down with Bradley, we already knew

how David had gotten on shoes radar, linked in, but that didn't explain how David had gotten on the FBI's radar, or for that matter how she did, and that was something we really wanted to know. So how does this case begin for you? So when you guys flew here, I imagine you had digital tickets right? Right. If you buy a ticket last minute, or you buy in cash, or there's a number of different traits, the airlines are required to report that to TSA. And if you ever get a ticket, it has four

S's on it. It means you've hit two or three of those criteria, which usually means someone's going to give you a secondary search. Well, when the GE Engine you're going to return to the United States from his trip to China, he had these codes on his ticket. He was offered his secondary inspection. At which point they found cash on David John? A lot of cash. $16,000. That was not well explained. And that's a starting point for this case. And so like, did Zhang buy his ticket with

cash or less minute, or was there something else that led to him being secondary? Is there anything we can say about that? I actually don't know the answer to that question. Okay. Can we talk any more about the secondary? It seems like even if you had maybe known something before, is that kind of the first moment we can talk about in his case? I don't know if I get any more detail than that. Okay. So he was secondary. He did have his cash, right? It sounds

like this was the moment that kind of led to to everything else that we then have. Is that roughly

“correct? Well, let's just leave it at that for now I think. Okay. So Bradley was not going to tell us”

where this case started. And as much as we tried, we could never get anyone to tell us where this

which allowed them to see some of Schu's colleagues correspondence with each other. We also know

“that cases like this one can start with the NSA flagging some email address or text or geotech or”

really any sort of digital footprint we're leaving behind all the time. And so we think it's likely that at least one of Schu's email addresses was flagged before he started talking with David Jun. So when he did the FBI noticed, got David's secondary to the airport and found the cash. And when the lead about Schu and David came in, it landed on Bradley Hall's desk because David Jun worked at GE Aviation, which was headquartered in Cincinnati. And Bradley was the FBI's

only counterintelligence agent there. We are spy hunters. We spy on the spies. We track the people whose job it is to not be recognized to not be identified to blend in. The drug dealer sells drugs. That's ipso facto illegal. It was very black and white. Counterintelligence exists in the gray. These are people who are trained to blend in, who are trained to do things that look normal.

“So to find that piece of illegality is very difficult.”

Bradley is an intense guy. I mean we talked to him for almost six hours. We ate lunch. He didn't. We drank coffee. He didn't. We sit from our bottles of water. He basically didn't. It's six a morning. No, I don't find it. He's work counterintelligence for his entire FBI career. And he chose it because someone told him it was the most challenging thing the bureau does. If you have a GS15ase accident in front of

you saying the hardest thing that we do is counterintelligence that peaked my interest.

But spy hunting isn't always as bad ass as it sounds. For instance, the first thing Bradley had

to do after getting this lead was go to David Jones employer and ask for their help. We went to GE and said, you know, we have a concern. We by no means have a full picture. But we would like you to work with us. The bureau came in and said you guys have a problem. This is art comings. At the time was chief security officer for all of GE's businesses. This is your problem. But this is the opportunity. The opportunity to work together to potentially

expose this intelligence officer whose job is to steal IP from American companies. That's just a beautiful operation. Beautiful for the FBI. But not necessarily for GE. A lot of companies. I would have said thank you very much. What's the person's name? Fire them and walked away from it. Because the proposal raised serious risks. Helping an investigation that might lead to a trial would only draw attention to the fact that GE had a security breach, which is a bad look

when one of the major buyers of your jet engines is the US military. When the guys are you prepared to expose this to DOD that you have billions of dollars of business with that shows that you were sloppy with their IP or with your IP? But that is a bad message all the way across the board. Plus GE does a lot of business in China. Working with the FBI on a case that accused China a stealing trade secrets could jeopardize their business. But not working with the FBI came with its own

risks. The fact that the MSS was targeting David John meant they were after some of GE's most sensitive information. He was one of about 10 to 12 engineers who were specifically on carbon fan blades and carbon fan blade encasements on the GE engine system series. That's a very small

“group of people working on a very important technology. Yes, GE is the only company in the world”

has ever commercialized this technique many have tried and failed, but GE is the only one. They are the crown jewel of jet engines. I'd say the loss of their most advanced

commercial jet engine is a billion dollars if they lost it. And there's future revenue and

there's just that generation. The next generation jet engine builds on that one and then the next one on that one and then the next one on that one. That's real. Art isn't that GE anymore. We tried repeatedly to talk to the company for the story, but they declined to comment each time. Ultimately, GE did decide to cooperate with the FBI. There were enough people particularly in the C-suite who were who were open to the idea of, okay, let's work with the FBI and see what we can

do to protect ourselves. So GE was in, but Bradley still had to convince one more person to get on board. David John. Oh, I want to turn him. So use him to operate against the MSS. Bradley wanted to make David his double. The double is someone who represents himself or herself as cooperating with the foreign intelligence service, but actually under the control of our service.

professional counter-intelligence people on the other side that this is legitimate. As a double agent, David would help the FBI try to learn the details of who this MSS officer actually was and maybe even help catch him. And it was a good moment to try. In 2017,

Donald Trump had just taken office for the first time. And his administration was gung

ho about going after China. So they were support at the highest levels of government for Nabig and MSS officer. But actually pulling it off would be a real hail Mary because it had

“literally never happened before. There was a lot of, do you really think this is going to work?”

And your response was, I'm positive it's going to work. From Bloomberg News and I Heart Podcasts, this is the sixth bureau. I'm Jordan Robertson. And I'm Drake Bennett. Today's show is brought to you by Vanguard. To all the financial advisors listening, let's talk

bonds for a minute. Capturing value and fixed income is not easy.

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I'm November 1st, 2017. David John started his day like any other day. He woke up, he drove to work, and then a few hours later, he was called into a meeting by GE Corporate Security. The engineer doesn't know exactly how much hot water he's in. This is Mike Regal, an agent who was pulled into work with Bradley on the case. He had like an interaction with, you know, GE security people. That was more like a general type

discussion, having an opener. GE Security asked David about some unusual activity they'd noticed. Specifically, the five sensitive files he transferred onto his personal computer before going to China. They literally walk out. They say someone else wants to speak to you. And then we come in. I'm sure his stress level went up a hundredfold, because obviously the guys kind of in shock, it comes for like kind of like a meeting with security guys and to FBI people

come walking in. It was a room meant for 60, 70 people, and we're sat at one tiny little corner of a table. We indicate that we are there for the same reason the GE was there. These files were moved. We've learned from GE that they went to China. That's the concern for us. Let's talk about it.

“And that's how the conversation starts. You know, you could have somebody that just unburdened”

himself and says, I, I know what you guys are here about. He didn't do them. No. They start by asking David about his trip to China. Why he went? What he did? Who he saw? You have to kind of eat this steak and small bites. David gives them a partial story. He went to a wedding. He went to a class reunion. He visited family back in the

So Bradley and Mike remind him. We started talking about the fact that he had done a presentation

without talking to GE. His brain is thinking, let me think of a way to get out of this. Can I think of a way to get out of this? Okay, let me give, let me give a different version of that.

“I gave a talk, but it's not on important stuff. But Bradley and Mike already know exactly what GE”

files David took with him to China. Here's the file that you download on March 27th and here's the image that has GE proprietary on it that you cropped out when you put in your PowerPoint, oops, they know about that. They've got that power point. There was a lot of, I forgot to mention. Then they asked him about all the cash he came back with. He lies about the amount and says it was repayment for a loan. I call it progressive truth telling. I let them tell the lie and

then I go back and I counter it point by point. I had the bank records that showed where he put the $16,000 cash. I'm going to show you 10 ways past Sunday that I know what day you put the money in, what you're kind of into like, don't, don't, don't play, right? Just I know. So he's changing over time to the point where he emotionally just can't do it anymore. Like you could watch the realization wash over him that, oh, this is more than just I'd download some files I shouldn't have.

This is now something else. The questions keep coming and there doesn't seem to be any escape. When David gets hungry, Bradley and Mike eat with him. When he has to go to the bathroom, they go with him. The walls were closing in. It's a voluntary interview. And he needs to know

“during a voluntary interview that it's very important that he can leave. It wasn't there. It wasn't”

his carbine code and like, he couldn't drive away. Well, so there's no meaning. Being free to leave and having some logistical issues are two different things, right? The logistical issues Mike is referring to, looks something like this. While the FBI is talking to David, his phone is confiscated. His car is seized from the GE parking lot and his house is searched. Bradley hands him a phone so he can call his wife. They tell him to put her on speaker and to speak in English. David tells her not

to go home. Because the FBI adjusts, kicked in their back door. It's a short call. He hangs up and the questioning continues. So this goes on for a long time to the point that he made kind of, I remember breaking down. There's like a slumping of the shoulders. There's, you know, an audible exhale where they go from that person who thinks they're walking out of the room that day

“to something to realize that their life is fundamentally changed. We go from, you know, the proper”

engineer who sits up with his hands on the table, we start getting the lean back for the lies and then by the end, you know, he's slumped down in the chair, right before he actually, you know,

starts to tear up. He's, he's dark crying. And finally, telling the whole story. He gives us as much

as he could remember. David acknowledges that he knew something was fishy about the cash he was handed after his talk. He eventually called it dark money, that he had known he had received dark money from someone in China. So deep down, maybe not as he was initially given the presentation, but half of the fact that realization was there that he knew that it was dark money. He maybe not have known it was the MSS specifically, but at this point, it'd be, you'd be hard

press to be ignorant to that type of thing happening. And yet, Bradley and Mike couldn't help but empathize a little. Why being invited to share his expertise at this prestigious university in the country where he grew up was so appealing to David. He came from very rural village. He literally

was the son of a big farmer, like he grew up on dirt floors. He was the first person, not only

his family, but from his village to go to college. He was one of about 10 to 12 engineers who were specifically on carbon fan blades and carbon fan blade encasements. At fact, this was a chance for him to brag about it. I know the secret sauce. I'm one of very few people can do it, so there was an ego part to it, right? And I understand that. I understand that motivation that this guy basically is like, I'm proud of my work. I like what I do. I'm excited about this.

The MSS prayed on people that want to talk about what they do because they're proud of it. They're excited about it. They find it interesting. It's like, hey, we really like to hear about this. This sounds like great stuff. Would you like to come give a talk about this? Is that ego? Yes, I guess it kind of is, but it's human. Yeah. David was suspended without pay and eventually let go.

violating expert control laws and for lying to federal agents. Or he could cooperate. You say, okay, there is a path forward. And you start to talk very gently about what that path can look like. And that hopefully, at the end, will improve their position. Vice word is right now, which is pretty bad. We couched it like this. You did wrong. You know you did wrong. You lied to me and you kept

lying to me. You finally told me the truth. But units set off to do this. They came to you.

So how about we go get them? They told them to sleep on it. It had been a long day, a really

“long day. I was exhausted. You know, the interview was hours. I can't remember the exact number.”

I for some reason seven sticks in my brain, but it's hours long. Seven hours and 42 minutes. When it was done, Bradley and Mike drove David home, because he had no car or phone. What was that ride like? Quiet. You're hearing only from Bradley and Mike here, because as we said in the last episode, we tried really hard to talk to David John, but he wouldn't talk to us. We didn't get to hear

from him directly what that day and night was like for him and how he went about weighing his options.

A green to be a double would be a huge risk for David. He'd be going up against the powerful

intelligence apparatus of China, the country where he was born and raised and still had family. He had good reason to say no, but it was that or those potential charges and prison time. So he agreed to cooperate. The next day, he got a lawyer and signed a non-possicution agreement saying that no charges would be brought against him in return for working with the FBI. It was time to go spy hunting.

As headlines in depth analysis and big interviews, all the stories that hit home on your days off. And I'm Lisa Mateo, watch and listen to Bloomberg this weekend for thoughtful, enlightening conversations about business, lifestyle, people, and culture. On Saturday mornings, we put the past weeks events into context, examining what happened in the

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With David on board, the FBI made their first move. Under Bradley's direction, David got back

in touch with his contact to Nanjing, but he couldn't come on too strong.

I want 5 million and I'll want it in an offshore account and here's the number.

Right, he's immediately going to say, what the, right, this is not for real. There's a sum, there's just one of those FBI dorms, right? Right. So they crafted a different kind of message to the person from NUAA who had first invited David to come give a talk. Chen Fang. Teacher Chen, I plan to go visit my elderly parents around a new year after wrapping up a big project because they aren't in the best health. After all, I likely won't have

much time left with them. I feel like I need to fulfill my familial applications. You'll be great together with O-friends by then as well. Offering to visit the university during Chinese new year, was an empty offer. Chinese New Year is the single largest mass migration of people in the world on an annual basis. Everyone goes home to their own province or village or farm, etc. Wherever they came from, which also means I can guarantee no one's going to be there for that

period of time that we say that we're going. Because guess who's not going to be in school for Chinese New Year, Chen Fang or anyone else at any way, eh? And it worked. Your trip back to this time coincides with school holiday. Most teachers and students, well, pretty much be back to their home palace. Bradley was banking on the fact that with the campus empty for vacation, Chen Fang would pass off the hosting duties to someone else. Someone who didn't actually have a

“university job. And Bradley was hoping it would be the important seeming official David”

had met on his trip. The man who had introduced himself as Chew Hue. Bradley suspected he was actually an MSS officer. I discussed with the section Chew, where organized or exchanged this time long. Bingo. I'll use this analogy. If it quacks and has webbed feet and you think it's a duck, we had feet and quacking at that point. Even though Bradley suspected Chew Hue was his guy, he still didn't have his real name and title. But Bradley was right about him being MSS,

because of course Chew Hue was actually Chew Yuan Jun. I knew what he was without knowing what he was. That makes sense. But he was about to. Because Chew Yuan Jun had made a key mistake. Before David came to China, Chew had sent him an email pretending to be Chen Fang, and he had sent that email from a Gmail address. Which meant the FBI could send search warrant to Google's parent company, Alphabet. Those warrant results revealed that the Gmail address was linked to an Apple

iCloud account, so the FBI sent warrants to Apple too. And with those results, Bradley came into

some feathers in a bill. In the form of one boring looking government document. When I first saw

I wasn't sure what it was because it was a Mandarin, but I saw a face in a military uniform, which makes it government. So we had a linguist, he translated it. He called me back, kind of the note of a flutter. Do you know what this is? I said, "Well, I don't know what it is. I'm going to guess. He says better than what you're going to guess." It's the MSS officer's life. From when he started college, when he joined the Communist Party, to when he joined the

Ministry of State Security and then every major progression in his career after that fact. It was an MSS cadre form, or basically, Xu Yanjun's resume. So I started sending communications back to FBI Headquarters saying, "None Intelligence Officer." And I got a little bit of a snarky call from a fairly high level analytical person

“at Headquarters saying, "Well, why are you calling this individual known intelligence officers?”

Like, that's the highest level we can get. We are positive. This person's intelligence officer. Because I had his spy CV in front of me. And when I said that to them, there was like a pause on the call, and then when you have what? And it's not that it was confusion.

Like, we know these things must exist, right? Just the first time we'd ever seen it.

That was the thing that took a case that was going fast and made it go light to be. Why? I feel a proof. He's an intelligence officer. This was definitive proof. Again, apologies for the duck reference. We know it's a duck. Let's just take a moment here to reflect on the sloppiness of a Chinese spy relying on American tech companies. Apple, Google, to conduct his top secret work. I mean, it's pretty wild.

We can throw shade at that as well, right? Okay. He was using the most popular cell phone in the

“world at the time, shocking. Did he read the 45,000 pages that you have to sign on?”

We can help a product. He didn't, because he would have, I mean, if he'd have read, you know, paragraph 45, subsection 422, maybe he would have realized that, right?

it captures GPS data. So the FBI was able to determine shoes exact location

“at the moment he snapped the photo of his cadre form that ended up in his eyecloth account.”

He was in Nanjing in the regional headquarters of the MSS. So, not the best trade craft. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's the unicorn. The warrant results kept coming back. There were emails and other sensitive documents. And there was the diary that portals to shoes life and habits and feelings. And that was something Bradley could use. He began to build a sort of

psychological profile of who shoe was and what he would respond to. And that became a guide

for how David communicated with you and how they tried to get him to do what they wanted.

I now knew where all his little buttons were. When you're trying very slowly to craft a message, that looks and appears and feels real to them. To know that level of detail about their life

“and their mindset, it allows you to tweak what you put in the message on a daily basis,”

so that we could keep him talking to our cooperator and keep the case moving forward so that we could get to the ultimate end goal. Because Bradley wasn't just trying to talk to shoe. For his plan to work, Bradley needed to convince you to do things. Things he wouldn't normally do, like let David shoes where they would meet next, which wasn't going to be an engine. Obviously, we're not going to allow the engineer to go back to China. Okay, that's, you know,

non-starter, right? And why not? Because China is territory that we can not control, obviously, you know, you can go with him. And we're not certainly not going to allow him to go by himself. So while David and shoe are messaging back and forth, shoe is still under the impression that David is coming back to China for Chinese New Year, like he had said, but he's not going to China for all the reasons Mike just said. So they had to break the news that if they were going to meet,

it would have to be somewhere else. But Bradley knew that was potentially a deal breaker. shoe would be disappointed and might just walk away. So they had to be strategic about it. Because of the diary, Bradley knew all about shoe's work resemblance, and the way he felt about his own superiors. March, 2011, John rejected the music today. Such an upgrade for person has no shame. I will have my revenge. So they used that. Hello, Session Chief Chu.

I have unfortunately news to tell you. I can't go by for the new year. The blast that they requested material for my world trip to France. The big bad boss. They are lost to be done. And he thinks he's inappropriate for two weeks of occasion right now. I'm very sorry about this. I can't go to China now, because my boss says I have to go work on this specific project. In France, Bradley was hoping that blaming this workshop on the boss was something

shoe would understand and sympathize with. But he knew that wasn't enough on its own. He had taken something away. David's trip to China. So now he had to give something in return. Something to keep shoe in the game. I'm very sorry that I can't come back to China for the new year and meet with you guys. I'll email you a directory of documents from a company of computer for your previous instruction. Please check. A directory is basically a list of all

the files on your computer. And if you don't know any engineers, you've never worked with an

engineer. They name them very specifically. And a lot of details contained within the titles of those files, because there's so many files, and each is so specific to a piece of technology that's working on it, et cetera, that you can clean a lot of information.

“From your point of view, how big of a deal was a directory? What's huge?”

GE gave Bradley a directory, but altered it to remove anything proprietary. David sent it to shoe and it worked. I'm sure he has sent his bosses. It's working. It's working. He sent me this file. He created this directory for me. Almost no one ever does that, right? It's good. His goal is goal. We've got to work at hard. He starts peppering David with questions about his upcoming work trip. How long will we be in France in March? Do you have plans to

visit any other countries? I'm planning this year's foreign travel, and we'll love to see you overseas if it's convenient. The US isn't in my plan. So I'd like to see you in other countries.

town, right? He's not going to do that. So we have to find something that's intermediate. That's risky, but not as big a risk, right? David and shoes start discussing European cities in France and elsewhere, but as shoe gets closer to leaving China for the meeting, he seems to need more reassurance about his source. We chats on enough anymore. He wants to hear David's voice. He calls him, but David's not with Bradley and Mike. He's home with his family. So David doesn't answer.

Hello, Station 2, too. Sorry, Mr. Call. I was trying to put my childhood sleep. Just got free.

“She responds. Do you have a minute? Let's talk on the phone. How about another day?”

My family is sleepy. shoe presses him. Or how about tomorrow? There's something I like to check in with you about if we meet in France. The next morning, David messages you that he can talk at 11am. He meets up with Bradley and Mike. They decide to do the call from Bradley's car in the FBI parking lot, but David pretends he's in his car in the GE parking lot on his lunch break. This is Special Agent Riegel, Special Agent

Bradley Hall. The date is February 28th. This call is a tricky thing for the FBI agents to put off about the start, consensual telephone call. They need to choreograph it in real time without tipping shoe off that they're there. So Bradley gives David specific instructions. So I just said here,

here's what we're going to do. I'm going to give you a patty paper. I need you to write down as fast as

you can. What he's saying. Over here, I'm going to point to what you say.

“We're going to go as quick as we can. If it's something important, you need to give me a signal”

so that I know because we need to keep this a natural flow. I said it needs to be natural. As you listen, you wouldn't know all of this is going on in the background. David sounds so normal. At no point does he let on that he's doing all this writing and signaling and adapting on the fly. It's really impressive. Although I do want to visit Belgium, Netherlands and Germany. I would like to go check it out. David suggests a few countries in Europe where he and

shoe could meet. Places he says he's always wanted to visit. If it works well for you,

I can tell my colleagues I'm visiting those places for fun. I assume they won't come along. I think those places may be more convenient. So you're saying it's better to meet in Belgium,

“Netherlands or Germany, right? Right. That works too. All right. Let's try our best to meet in Europe.”

Good. Good. If I need to communicate any details to you, I will send them to you through Wichart. Okay. Good night. Okay. Goodbye. Good night. Good bye. Good night, such and safe too. shoe has agreed to leave his home turf and meet David in Europe. Somewhere in Europe. He believes that David is just a willing source to GE, ready to hand over whatever he needs. And so shoe is willing to do whatever he needs to to get the

goods. In this moment, that means he's willing to travel. This is a big win for the FBI.

That's a huge step. That's definitely kind of like yeah, this is a miss is amazing. And I could just

feel shoe's excitement. Here's James Olson, former chief of counterintelligence at the CIA. This is going to be the recruitment that is going to set him aside from from all of his peers. This is big. This is a very big thing. There's this kind of dynamic where the MSS senior management is following this very closely. The FBI senior management is following this very closely. Like when this meeting is taking shape, there would have been an enormous amount of excitement

in both places. Absolutely. About the potential of this. Absolutely. They both are very close to a major intelligence crew. You're going head to head with some very smart people on both ends. And each side has to be smarter than the other. I could just see the the jubilation with the FBI that he's coming our way. On the next episode. It's not just like a couple of dudes and suits. I mean, these are some legit

look and like sealed team six look and type dudes. So I'm bringing him into a fatal funnel, into a fatal funnel, in a fatal funnel. This whole investigation seemed like it was out of a movie. Of course.

He's a spy. I was a spy. He lived under cover. I lived under a cover. He's doing what he's believing

“is right. I did what I believe is right. How are we any different?”

I'm Francine Lacquat an award-winning journalist and I've got a new podcast. Leaders was Francine Lacquat from Bloomberg Podcasts. I've interviewed everyone from heads of state to fashion icons about the

news of the moment. But I've always been curious who are these people as leaders. I don't think there's

one right way to be a leader. Make decisions. A poor decision is always better than no decision. Listen to new episodes every other Monday. Follow leaders with Francine Lacquat wherever you get

your podcasts. Hello gorgeous. It's Lala Kent. Post of untraditionally Lala. My days of filling up

cups at Sir may be over but I'm still loving life in the valley. Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes but over here on my podcast untraditionally Lala. I'm still that Lala. You either love or love to hate. It's unruly. It's unafraid. It's untraditionally Lala. Listen to untraditionally Lala on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

“You know Rold Dal. He thought I really wanted in the BFG but did you know he was a spy?”

In the new podcast the secret world of Rold Dal. I'll tell you that story and much much more. What? You probably won't believe it either. Was this before he wrote his stories? I must have been.

“Okay I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. It was a spy. Listen to the secret”

world of Rold Dal. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.