Share this article!

A former senior advisor for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors was arrested and indicted on charges that he conspired to steal Federal Reserve trade secrets on behalf of the Chinese government.

John Harold Rogers was accused of making false statements to the Office of Inspector General for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (FRB-OIG), and those false statements had a material impact on its investigation.

According to the indictment, Rogers, a US citizen with a PhD in economics, was a senior advisor at the Fed’s Division of International Finance from 2010 until 2021, where he was entrusted with confidential information. Rogers allegedly shared this confidential information with his Chinese co-conspirators, who worked for the intelligence and security apparatus of China and who posed as graduate students at a Chinese university.

The indictment claimed that the data Rogers shared with his co-conspirators could allow China to manipulate the US market in a manner similar to insider trading. This information included  advance knowledge of changes to the federal funds rate, which could provide China with an advantage when selling or buying US bonds or securities.

The indictment alleges that, from at least 2018, Rogers allegedly exploited his employment with the Fed by soliciting trade-secret information regarding proprietary economic data sets, deliberations about tariffs targeting China, briefing books for designated governors, and sensitive information about Federal Open Market Committee deliberations and forthcoming announcements. He passed that information electronically to his personal email account, in violation of FRB policy, or printed it prior to traveling to China, in preparation for meetings with his co-conspirators.

Under the guise of teaching “classes,” Rogers met with his co-conspirators in hotel rooms in China where he conveyed sensitive, trade-secret information that belonged to the central bank. In 2023, Rogers was paid approximately $450,000 as a part-time professor at a Chinese university.

Rogers was questioned by the FRB-OIG in February 2020, when he lied about his accessing and passage of sensitive information and his associations with his co-conspirators.

Rogers is charged with conspiracy to commit economic espionage and with making false statements. The Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, issued a statement to Reuters that said, “China is a country that upholds the rule of law…we oppose any smear and attack on China with so-called ‘spy risks’.”

“President Trump tasks us with protecting our fellow Americans from all enemies, foreign and domestic. As alleged in the indictment, this defendant leveraged his position within the Federal Reserve to pass sensitive financial information to the Chinese government, a designated adversary,” said US Attorney Edward R. Martin Jr. for the District of Columbia. “Let this indictment serve as a warning to all who seek to betray or exploit the United States: law enforcement will find you and hold you accountable.”