Chinese espionage case in Chicago linked to larger foreign espionage scheme

CHICAGO (WLS) – The espionage case against a former US Army reservist and student at the Illinois Institute of Technology was not a one-man espionage show, according to federal investigators.

Ji Chaoqun’s appearance at the federal court in Chicago on Thursday is routine, in a case anything but normal. Chaoqun is accused against the backdrop of a possibly broader Chinese scheme to divert intelligence information abroad.

Chaoqun and a similarly accused spy in Cincinnati, Ohio, shared the same foreign connection according to the authorities, which is known in intelligence circles as a “manipulator”. This link is pointed out in federal court records examined by I-Team.

Chinese citizen Chaoqun, 30, is accused of providing China’s intelligence officials with background information on eight American citizens, including defense contractors, federal investigators say. He arrived in Chicago in 2013 on a student visa to study electrical engineering at the IIT on the South Side, but since he was arrested he has been arrested at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in the Loop for allegedly violating America’s Foreign Agent Registration Act.

In the case of Cincinnati, Yanjun Xu is being detained on charges of trying to steal trade secrets from GE Aviation, the giant contractor and military manufacturer where he worked. Xu is accused of downloading GE Aviation records on his personal laptop and then smuggling them on a flight to China. Xu, 40, made it to his homeland, but became the first suspected spy extradited from China to the United States. He is now being held at the federal penitentiary in Milan, Michigan.

So, what is the connection between the Cincinnati Xu and the Chicago Chaoqun? Although there is no indication that the men were real partners, compassionate in the crime, or even that they met, the alleged link is buried in a Chicago court file.

Chaoqun’s criminal complaint cites a “clandestine and open collection of human sources” used by Chinese officials to recruit spies and gather stolen information.

“Chinese intelligence services conduct extensive open, secret and clandestine intelligence collection operations against U.S. national security entities, including U.S. private defense companies, through a network of agents inside and outside China,” says the FBI special agent Andrew K. McKay.

According to the FBI, Chaoqun and Xu shared the same Chinese secret agent. US officials say the Chinese man assigned to secretly oversee the two tasks met with each alleged agent separately. They met in secret places, often in hotel rooms, but with the same purported purpose: to provide “information for the benefit of the Chinese government”.

Chaoqun is charged in Chicago, but not in the case of Cincinnati.

Xu is charged in Cincinnati, but not in the case of Chicago.

The link between the two men is that unidentified, uninhibited and uncharged manipulator, which investigators say is part of a growing network of Chinese government recruiters, working clandestinely 6500 miles from Beijing.