Ex-senior Federal Reserve advisor charged with economic espionage to benefit China

A former senior advisor for the Federal Reserve was arrested Friday on charges that he conspired to steal Fed trade secrets for the benefit of China.

The co-conspirators were members of China's intelligence and security apparatus who posed as graduate students at a university in that country, according to prosecutors.

Rogers, a 63-year-old resident of Vienna, Virginia, was indicted in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on charges of conspiracy to commit economic espionage and making false statements.

The case was revealed on the eve of planned tariffs by President Donald Trump against China.

Rogers worked as a senior advisor in the international finance division of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2010 until 2021, the DOJ said.

As part of that job, he "was entrusted with confidential FRB information," according to the department.

Rogers since 2018 allegedly exploited his employment "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 (FOMC) deliberations and forthcoming announcements," the DOJ said.

The indictment accuses him of passing that information electronically from his personal email, in violation of Fed policy, or printing it out prior to traveling to China to meet with 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 FRB and the FOMC," the DOJ said.

FBI Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg in a statement said, "The Chinese Communist Party has expanded its economic espionage campaign to target U.S. government financial policies and trade secrets in an effort to undermine the U.S. and become the sole superpower."

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