Chinese spies are trying to infiltrate the US.
From universities to the FBI
A former FBI undercover agent
Reveals their operations.
This is China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
Ever hear of a honey trap?
A honey trap is when a hostile foreign government uses,
say, a beautiful woman,
to seduce someone—a politician, a businessman, a scientist.
They might give information to her
that could pose a national security risk.
Or she could just use the salacious encounter to blackmail him.
And let’s just say,
Chinese leaders know a thing or two about honey.
I sat down with former FBI operative Marc Ruskin,
author of “The Pretender: My Life Undercover for the FBI”...
to find out how Chinese agents are using honey traps—
and many other techniques—
to infiltrate the United States.
Thanks for joining me today, Marc.
Hey, it's my pleasure, Chris.
Thank you for inviting me.
Sure.
Well, so as a former FBI agent,
what have you seen are some of the ways the Chinese Communist Party
is trying to gain influence in the United States?
Well, the Chinese intelligent services along
with other hostile intelligence services exploit
a number of vulnerabilities that exist in the United States.
And to a large extent, and this may be surprising
to some of your viewers,
but the majority of the data that they seek
is actually available through open sources.
Much of it is available legally to anyone
who takes the trouble to look for it.
Is this what you mean by vulnerabilities?
Yeah.
By vulnerabilities, I'm talking about open ...
manners in which data which can be of use to a hostile power,
such as China, can be accessed without necessarily
violating any federal or American laws.
A lot of the data that is significant
and can be used for a hostile adversary purposes
is actually available through open sources.
Much of it is information, for example,
such as a technical report, research, engineering,
which has been conducted on a very sophisticated level
and has not yet been classified.
So there's often a lag time, for example,
with advanced research,
the publication of the research not being reviewed
and being ultimately classified as secret or top secret.
But since the Chinese intelligence services
are very active and on the ball and alert,
often they've already accessed the information
and it's out the door prior to it being classified.
So what does China do with this information?
Well, we're talking,
I'm thinking basically information of a technical level,
which can then be used by own engineers and their own researchers
to advance their own level of sophistication,
bypassing the research that they would've had to do themselves
in order to reach the same point.
In other words, they're taking advantage,
and this is a problem with academia in the United States
and that we have a very open society.
And by having this kind of openness,
it gives more access to hostile services to obtain information
either through a variety of methods,
but often not necessarily to espionage,
but often it's simply by being alert
and being quick and accessing the,
and knowing where the look and when to look.
So that's kind of similar to how recently it came out
that the Chair of Harvard's Chemistry Department
was getting funding from China.
Right.
Just last month,
just at the end of January,
there was an arrest of Professor Lieberand announcements by the special agent in charge
of the FBI in Boston,
Bonaventura,
who he explained in his statements that right now China is,
in his view,
and presumably reflects the view of the FBI today,
China's the largest intelligence threat to the US.
Whether it's larger than Russia or not,
it's kind of like how many angels
can dance on the head of a pin type of question.
In either case,
they're all hostile intelligence services and need to be,
we need to take a preventative,
counter-intelligence type measures
in order to protect ourselves from a hostile act.
So, you've talked about how China
takes advantage of open source information.
How in the case of the Harvard Professor Lieber,
how money can buy off people.
How does China use foreign agents in the United States?
Well, historically there've been a number of ways
that the Chinese have used traditional espionage techniques.
One in particular that's been very successful is,
and it may seem reminiscent of John Le Carre novels,
but it's the reality is what's referred to in trade craft
as a honey trap,
which is using an attractive female case officer,
intelligence officer,
to develop a relationship with someone
who has access to classified information.
And it's a longterm proposition to develop an intimate,
ultimately physical relationship or maybe even the relationship
that the target believes is a legitimate emotional relationship.
There was an FBI agent, a Supervisor, James,
and his last name escapes me right now,
but who with Katrina Leung,
was the name of the intelligence officer.
Not her real Mandarin name,
but she developed a relationship with him
and for 20 years that relationship continued.
It's hard to imagine for nearly two decades,
and he was the supervisor of a China Counter Intelligence squad
in the FBI's Los Angeles office,
and he was taking, apparently, from what I understand,
confidential classified documents to his rendezvouses with her.
So until ultimately he was arrested
after he retired and entered into a plea agreement
with the US Attorney's office.
How common are these honey traps?
Unfortunately, it's a question that has no real answer
because all we know about is the ones that were caught.
Right?
So from time to time,
in the FBI it's not very common that we know about.
The first one in the history of the FBI
involved an agent called Richard Miller,who was seduced by a Soviet at that time,
Soviet Union agent,
whose name was Svetlana Ogorodnikova.
And so, how often does it happen in other agencies?
I would suspect it happens more often in other agencies.
The FBI has a pretty serious vetting process for recruiting agents.
And as the CIA does as well.
But there are other areas where these honey traps could be used
and which are not to infiltrate America's Counter Intelligence services,
but simply to infiltrate, say academia.
You could have this kind of technique being utilized
with the college professors or engineers
working at nuclear research laboratories,
which we wouldn't know about
because they haven't come to surface yet.
So besides these methods, what other tactics
is the Chinese Communist Party using in the United States?
I guess the one answer would be
whatever they can imagine and come up with.
As we all know, the Russians, the Soviets were,
since the creation of the Soviet Union
has been attempting to influence the American elections.
With regard to the Russians, we can read about it
because since the fall of the Soviet Union,
many ex-KGB officers who worked in the US
have been able to publish their memoirs.
So you can go to the bookstore and buy Kalugin's book
and see how they were in New York and in Washington
doing their best through all types of clandestine activity
to influence the elections.
Now, presumably if the Russians were doing it,
the Chinese were doing it also.
However, we don't have a bunch of ex-Chinese
intelligence officers publishing their memoirs
because I would imagine that their longevity would be very dim indeed
were they to attempt to do so
as would the health of their family members, right?
Probably.
So we don't know firsthand, but what we do know
is what has been uncovered just through ordinary criminal investigations.
And for that we can just look back to the Clinton re-election campaign.
In the Clinton re-election campaign,
there was Johnny Young, and the thousands and thousands of dollars
that were being apparently allegedly contributed
both directly to the Clinton re-election campaign
and to the Democratic National Committee.
This is Bill Clinton and the China Gate scandal in the 90s?
Right.
Of course, it didn't become as much of a scandal,
I would suggest as it should have been,
because according to reporting in the media,
there was direct links between the People's Republic of China
Military Intelligence Services
and the recipients or the middlemen for that money going to the campaign.
So you asked how, in other words, other techniques,
I would suggest that contributing to a political party
and contributing to a president's re-election campaign.
And it's more than just mere suspicion.
There was 22 convictions as a result of this.
So, this is another tactic.
It's a tactic.
How successful is it?
I can't evaluate it,
but it's certainly a tactic that arguably was used
in order to influence the outcome
for an American political presidential election.
And also arguably inference can be made
that there's a certain amount of influence
that's being purchased through that kind of a donation.
So it seems like the Chinese Communist Party
is taking advantage of the free and open society
we have in the United States.
How can the US counter this without giving up these freedoms?
Well, there had been an attempts for the FBI, for example,
many years ago, had an initiative.
It was librarians were recruited,
since there's so much access to open source information,
the thought was that by bringing in librarians
to identify suspect individual patrons,
it may sound a little simple,
but it could've been very effective,
individuals with accents from countries
which are known to be hostile to the US,
accessing highly technical reports on a continuing basis.
It was thought, the idea was,
and I think it was a good idea that it could,
these could have provided leads in order
to identify whether they be Chinese or Russian,
or from other hostile powers,
individuals seeking to exploit open source information.
The reaction from the librarians and from the civil liberties groups
was hardly very cooperative.
It was just the opposite.
There was a big negative reaction that caused the initiatives
to essentially have to be shut down.
And there was a lot of publicity about it at the time.
And at the time in the New York Times,
but ultimately it didn't work.
A similar attempt occurred after 9/11,
when the Patriot Act was passed,
there was a clause that was referred to as the library clause.
In which again,
the FBI and other government agencies were seeking
to obtain information regarding access
by the Chinese and other hostile powers
to open source significant technological information.
Again, the reaction was hardly cooperative.
It seems almost absurd,
but there were signs being put in the library
to warn patrons that their access
may be subject to government review.
So rather than cooperate, it was just the opposite.
The librarians were essentially warning off potential patrons
who could be identified.
So it's a tricky ... it's a balancing act,
we want to be-
Well, I was going to say,
because I can kind of understand that fear,
because in going after,
China takes advantage of the open source information,
but essentially the free and open access information in the United States.
So if the government tries to stop that,
it's almost like they're trying to stop
free and open access to information,
which is at the core ...
is one of the cores of our society.
Right.
It's a core value.
And I would argue that we want to maintain openness.
We want to maintain our liberties.
That's what makes this country almost unique
among other countries is our Constitution,
the Bill of Rights and the privacy rights,
which we enjoy.
Albeit, some would argue,
I would argue that many of the Bill of Rights provisions
of being chipped away now, unfortunately.
But we do want to continue to enjoy them best we can.
And so it's a balancing act.
To what extent do we maintain openness
and at the same time protect national security.
And I think a lot has to involve ethical behavior
by our counter intelligence services
and our intelligence gathering services
and regulations legislation,
which is designed or tailored to safeguard our country.
And at the same time, safeguard our liberties.
So what are some of the ways the FBI
is trying to counter Chinese espionage operations?
Or is that too classified?
I mean, I think the best way to address
that is to just refer to the FBI's techniques in general
to counter the intelligence activities of hostile countries.
And I would suggest that they're not country-specific necessarily.
So the techniques that the Bureau uses are ...
to fight Soviet, or not Soviet,
to fight Russian intelligence activities
or Cuban intelligence activities or Chinese intelligence activities,
are essentially ... in the unclassified sense,
are pretty much the same techniques.
There may be, depending on the techniques
being used by the hostile power,
they may be fine tuning so that
they are adapted to that particular country.
But overall it's not like it's a whole different bag of tricks
for each different country.
For example, I worked a number of cases
and they're discussed in some of the chapters in my book
as an undercover agent, I worked false flag operations.
Now, false flag operations are directed against
any number of hostile type of intelligence activities.
And they're not country-specific.
And the way a false flag operation works essentially
is just to briefly summarize,
because I don't think that this is popular,
known to a large extent,
is when an individual is identified who wants to sell
or transfer classified information
to another country's intelligence service.
So it could be to China,
to the Chinese intelligence,
it could be to Russian intelligence,
but they're trying to sell it.
So the individuals identified,
let's say he is a nuclear engineer
at a facility that does research,
that does classified research
or perhaps an Army Colonel
who has access to classified military intelligence.
Then he or she reaches out through some tech,
perhaps let's say to a friend,
do you know anyone in X capital of X country
who might be interested in buying this information?
And the source then instead of going to someone in that country
comes to the FBI and says,
"Hey, do you know that professor so-and-so
or Colonel so-and-so, or engineer so-and-so
is seeking to sell secrets to whoever."
And then the espionage unit at FBI headquarters
would then reach out to me and say,
"Marc, we need you to reach out to this individual."
And we very quickly set up an operation
where I would pretend to be an intelligence officer
working on behalf of that country.
Now, depending on the country,
I could say that I'm either from that country
or if it's obviously I'm not from that country-
Like China.
Yeah, right.
But I could be working for
the intelligence service of another country on behalf as a proxy,
on behalf of China or wherever.
And then it's a hostile operating environment here
so they can't send somebody out.
But they've asked my country to send out someone in their stead,
and I'm ... you are so important and stroking the individual,
you are so important that they've sent me,
a very high level intelligence officer in my country,
to make contact with you and establish a relationship.
And these cases were very sensitive because,
and they needed someone who by this point
I had a lot of experience doing this kind of work,
because the first contact was critical.
If the individual,
the future trader didn't believe that
I was who I was claiming to be,
that would be the end.
It would be shut down.
There'd be no second chance,
no second bite at the apple.
So these were, but once they bit,
then we would develop a whole clandestine system
for them to transfer information to me.
It was something, again,
straight out of a John Le Carre or Tom Clancy type thing
with dead drops and whatever
to make them feel they were really working in clandestine activity.
And then they would transfer,
we would pay them, they would transfer ...
that's what they wanted, was money,
it was not ideological,
but often most of the time there was money being paid.
And then once they were believing
they were transferring information to a hostile power.
It's actually us who's collecting it.
And then at the end of the day,
the handcuffs come on and usually lengthy prison terms.
Well, so what is the Chinese Communist Party's ultimate goal
with these influence operations in the United States?
Well, again, now you're calling for speculation as to what, what ...
I think that when there's an attempt
to influence an outcome of an election,
whether through finances,
financial contributions or whatever.
Presumably, it's being done for a reason.
I mean, large quantities of money are not going to be spent
unless there's some gain,
there's some advantage that is expected to be obtained
as a result of that.
So yeah, I would suggest, I mean, again and again
it's speculation and opinion,
but that they're seeking to obtain advantages and leverage
in order to expand whatever goals
that their central committee has established,
be it economic or otherwise.
Thanks again for joining me today.
It's a pleasure having you on.
My pleasure.