Former senior adviser for Federal Reserve indicted on economic espionage charges

A former senior adviser for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors was arrested on charges of conspiring with Chinese officials to steal Federal Reserve trade secrets, federal court filings unsealed Friday revealed. 

Prosecutors allege that John Harold Rogers conspired with people in China to steal trade secrets from the Fed’s Board of Governors and Open Market Committee and made false statements to the Federal Reserve inspector general. 

The indictment alleges that Rogers exploited his relationship with the Federal Reserve and gave information to co-conspirators in China who posed as graduate students at a Chinese university, but were in reality intelligence and security officers of the People’s Republic of China. They allege he gave them economic data sets and briefing books meant for Fed Board governors.

“Under the guise of teaching ‘classes,’ Rogers would meet with co-conspirators in hotel rooms in China where he would convey sensitive, trade-secret information” from the Federal Reserve to Chinese agents, the indictment alleges. 

In 2023, prosecutors claim Rogers was paid approximately $450,000 to be a part-time professor at a Chinese university.

Federal prosecutors say Rogers was involved with the Chinese for about seven years, from 2018 to early this year. 

Rogers made his initial appearance in a Washington, D.C. federal courtroom on Friday, where he was ordered detained for three days, pending an arraignment and detention hearing set for next week.

Robert Legare

contributed to this report.