Chinese MSS Officer Extradited to U.S. from Belgium
In what can only be described as a rarity, a very senior Chinese intelligence officer was arrested in Belgium and extradited to the United States, where he was indicted by the Department of Justice on charges that include conducting economic espionage against the United States.
The Chinese Ministry for State Security officer was Deputy Division Director Yangun Xu. The FBI came upon Xu following his operational activity with a GE Aviation employee. Xu arranged for the employee to come to China and present at a university, then attempted to segue the relationship into a clandestine fleecing of the intellectual property of GE Aviation. As part of the covert engagement, Xu suggested to his target that they meet in Europe and a meeting was arranged a few weeks later in Belgium.
The target’s tasking? Bring his hard drive, copy the contents to a USB or external drive, and acquire additional materials identified by Xu from the corporate data stores, if possible. China was going to get all it could from the corporate laptop, which the employee would ostensibly carry with him to Belgium. Whenever the target brought up internal security and controls, including access management, the Chinese were quick with suggestions. Reluctance expressed by the employee was met with, “Let’s talk about it when we next meet.” Xu was kicking the can down the lane.
Keeping a secret isn’t easy, but one was clearly kept: Xu arrived for the meeting and was arrested by the Belgian authorities. But the truly astonishing part is that the Belgium law enforcement/intelligence apparatus arrested Xu April 1, but he was not extradited to the United States until Oct. 9. And nary a whisper was heard about his being held—indicative of the level of trust and collaboration between the United States and Belgium.
The FBI/DoJ clearly saw value in declaring to the Belgian services that Xu, a Chinese MSS officer, was on his way to Belgium to meet with a controlled U.S. source. The MSS officer would be operating under an operational alias persona. What we don’t know is what was actually shared with the Belgians and what, if any, information was shared by DoJ during the Belgian extradition hearings—or even if there were any hearings. All we know is that Xu cooled his heels in Belgian custody from April to October.
Contemporaneously with Xu’s arrest and incarceration in Belgium, Meng Hongwei, a vice minister within China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS) who was elected in 2016 as president of Interpol for a two-year term ending in October, disappeared. Unfortunately, for Meng, he visited China in September and disappeared from sight.
After a few days of waiting, the PRC government announced Meng had been arrested on suspicion of corruption.
Perhaps the corruption charges are really a light cover for putting Meng on ice so he could be grilled on why the MPS or MSS were not advised of the impending rollup of Xu in Belgium. After all, prior extraditions to the United States have involved Interpol and a given country sharing the existence of warrants for an identified individual. It’s doubtful we’ll ever know for sure, but the timing is a bit too coincidental for this jaded eye.
No doubt the U.S. Ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, is getting an earful from his friend Xi Jinping via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the incarceration and indictment of an MSS officer by the United States.
Xu’s extradition is a first, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Benjamin C. Glassman, who said during a 25-minute press conference Oct. 10: “This is the first time a Chinese MSS officer has been arrested and extradited to the United States.” What was not mentioned was the direct connection to the Chinese attempt to seed an asset into the U.S. Army Reserves. Had it not been for Xu and his communications with his colleagues, the FBI would not have arrested Ji Chaoqun (Ji) in early October.
From the outside looking in, it would appear the DoJ and FBI are engaged in a careful orchestration of events. The sense is analogous to the artist who builds ships inside bottles and the completed ship stands up when the artist gives a final tug on the string. The DoJ/FBI are pulling on that string and two arrests have occurred. How many more Chinese assets come to light in the coming days, weeks or months remains to be seen, but one cannot help but admire the counterintelligence coup of having an MSS officer under a commercial cover and alias arrested abroad and brought to trial in the United States.
The economic trade dynamic between China and the United States has taken on a new dimension.
