
An economist who worked as an adviser to the U.S. Federal Reserve Board is being charged with alleged economic espionage on behalf of China.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced that John Harold Rogers, an economics PhD who worked in the Fed’s division of international finance between 2010 and 2021 has been charged with conspiracy to commit economic espionage, and with making false statements to investigators from the Fed and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
According to the indictment, Rogers allegedly shared potentially-sensitive information, including proprietary economic data sets, internal deliberations about tariffs targeting China and information about Fed meeting deliberations with foreign agents who were posing as graduate university students in China.
The DoJ alleged that Rogers, who worked as a professor at China’s Fudan University, passed sensitive information to the Chinese, “under the guise of teaching classes.”
“The data Rogers shared with his co-conspirators could allow China to manipulate the U.S. market, in a manner similar to insider trading. Gaining advance knowledge of U.S. economic policy, including advance knowledge of changes to the federal funds rate, could provide China with an advantage when selling or buying U.S. bonds or securities,” the DoJ said in a release.
The allegations have not been proven, and he is presumed to be innocent.