Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts radio

news.

A quick note, this is the fifth episode

of this series. If you haven't listened

to the previous episodes, we recommend

going back and listening in order.

Thanks.

>> About 5 months after GE engineer David

agreed to work with the FBI, he was on a

plane with agent Mike Regal heading for

Europe. It's stressful.

He's like, I'm taking a huge risk. I'm

away from my family. I'm in a foreign

country. I'm doing some weird thing

against the Chinese government. And we

had to make it clear to him, look,

you're never going to meet with him

again. This is just to get him in the

country.

>> The mission, arrest Shu Yan Jun, a

Chinese intelligence officer.

>> This is something we've never ever done

before. Can we actually get this guy out

of China so we can get our hands on him?

>> I was skeptical that it would work out

like right, we're going to get a Chinese

intelligence officer and we're going to

bring him back from China and we're

going to try and we're like, right.

>> At this point, I have done some crazy

things. I've convinced people way more

important to me, the FBI, this is going

to work. It has to work.

>> I mean, there's lots of times we tried

to do international arrests and they

just don't work. Something happens.

Someone gets tipped off. someone gets

cold feet, doesn't show up.

>> I still had that faith, but deep down

you're like, man, if this breaks bad on

me, I'm never going to live this down.

>> From Bloomberg News and iHeart podcast,

this is the Sixth Bureau. I'm Jordan

Robertson.

>> And I'm Drake Bennett.

So, we were in central Brussels.

>> When David and Mike landed, they met up

with Bradley.

>> We were based out of my hotel room in

the top floor of a 16th century

building.

>> Deciding on Brussels as the site of the

operation had been a process. Shu had

agreed to meet David in Europe before

the FBI had even figured out which

country would be willing to help them.

>> I literally called and said, "All right,

here's my 30 secondond spiel. I have an

MSS officer. He's willing to come to

Europe. Who's going to say yes to this?"

Not everyone.

The FBI needed to find a country that

checked a bunch of boxes. One, would

they let the FBI run an operation there?

Two, would they help with the arrest?

Three, could they move quickly? And

four, were they willing to detain and

extradite Shu even at the cost of

angering China? And we ultimately

settled on the Belgians.

So up on the top floor of the hotel in

one small room, it's Bradley, Mike,

David, an FBI translator, and their

Belgian chaperone. We had the most

junior counterterrorism officer from the

Belgian Federal Police assigned us. And

by assigned us, I mean she just sort of

sat there and went, "What am I doing

here?" You could tell she was beused,

but she was along for the ride.

>> Things got claustrophobic. The ceiling

was low. It was hot. And sometimes it

didn't smell great.

>> You know, it's fragrant. Five of us are

crammed into this room, spending most of

our day on the phone with Shu trying to

affect the next pivot in the operation.

>> You're there, but there's still one more

pivot.

>> Correct. Because Shu thinks David's in

Paris for a work trip and that he'll

meet him in Amsterdam. Shu had even

suggested a specific spot, oddly a laser

tag venue called Laser Gaming. But that

wasn't going to happen since Belgium is

the country that said yes to this

operation.

>> So on March 29th, 2018, 2 days before

she was supposed to leave China, David

sends him a message.

>> The trip to France is going pretty

smoothly. However, my work schedule has

been changed. My boss made me travel to

the sub branch of Saffron in Belgium

because we need to give him some

technical help with the joint project.

That said, I will not be able to make it

to Amsterdam. this Saturday.

>> The pivot.

>> But I can meet you at a hotel in

Brussels this Sunday afternoon.

>> If I was on that other end, I would be

thinking, "You don't tell me what to do.

I tell you what to do. I'm the handler.

You're the informant." He pushed back

hard. He yelled at us. I have permission

from the Chinese government to travel to

France. I have permission from the

Chinese government to travel to the

Netherlands. I don't have permission to

go to blankety blank Belgium.

>> And of course, David had to respond in

real time.

>> As the conversations or the texts are

happening, our linguist translating as

quickly as possible again so that Mike

or I can point, say that, say that,

don't say that, say that.

>> It was a sensitive moment. Shu was still

pushing for the meeting to happen in the

Netherlands that Sunday.

>> You can definitely make it in one day.

Why don't you book your train and we can

meet somewhere near the train station.

But the Netherlands wasn't going to work

for the FBI. So David needed a new

excuse for why he couldn't even take a

day trip, why he had to stay in

Brussels.

>> We spent hours talking about what we

could say to make it as believable as

possible. We filled a quarter of one of

these notebooks with the different,

well, if we said this, would that work?

And someone would say, I don't think

it's going to work because of this and

we'd rip it out and we'd start again. In

the end, they went with their go-to

excuse.

>> We played on things that we knew had

worked before. The big bad boss.

>> Sunday is Easter. My boss takes it very

seriously.

>> Well, the boss feels so guilty about

making us travel on the holiday weekend

that he's going to take us out for an

Easter brunch.

>> He's reserved Easter lunch for the

traveling team and ask us to please

attend.

>> And if I don't show up, that's going to

look really bad. and I I can't

disappoint my boss. So, I can't leave

Brussels.

>> This is why I'll have time to meet you

here on Sunday afternoon, but I don't

have time to travel to other cities.

>> You know, we're so sorry. We can't help

it. This is just a situation.

I'll be back in 6 months or a year or

whenever the next time I might be back

here. Maybe we can do it then. Well,

that was unacceptable. It had to happen

now.

>> So, Hugh finally concedes. He agrees to

a meeting in Brussels. He's going to

physically come.

>> Why do you think he ultimately agrees to

come to Belgium? There was so much back

and forth, but eventually he agrees.

>> I think the prize was too much. I mean,

the prize was something he couldn't pass

up, right? He's looking at large amounts

of GE research that helps Chinese

commercial aviation cut time off, saves

them money, gives them a jump. So if

you're Zu and you bring in this kind of

stuff, you're basically saying I'm the

guy that did it.

>> The day before his trip, Shu messages

his wife. I put a USB drive in the

eyeglass box in the middle of the

bookcase. It contains some encrypted

documents. If something happens, someone

will come to you and tell you the

password.

I mean, I've deployed more than 40

times. Often I don't tell anyone where

I'm going. I can't tell anyone where I'm

going. But to add the comment on if

something goes wrong, I've never done

that.

And the reaction that his wife had was,

you know, what he would expect.

>> Oh my god, don't scare me like this.

>> It seems like he had some doubts at that

point.

>> He did. But when you talk about the

riskreward, what we were offering, what

we were claiming that we were going to

provide was clearly worth the risk.

I will never know if he was ordered or

chose to go given that set of

circumstances, but it happened.

On March 31st, Shu arrives in Amsterdam

and route to Belgium. Photos pulled from

airport security cameras show him coming

through customs. He's wearing a

backpack, has a giant suitcase, and is

dressed in all black. And he's not

alone. He's with a colleague. In the

photos, you can see Shu talking on his

phone.

>> He's on the phone with us.

>> Shu's talking to David about where to

meet in Brussels. So, I grabbed Ruth,

our Belgian colleague who was with us,

who very begrudgingly, I think she slept

on the floor that night in my room like

in a sleeping bag or something. And I

grabbed her and I said, "Okay, we need

to find a meeting location. We've gotten

too far. I can't let Shu tell me where

we're going to meet."

And we just started walking around like

tourists. And as I'm walking around

central Brussels, I come across a

leptoen

coffee shop.

>> The chain lean quiten

>> in legalities.

>> This particular location was in a 19th

century shopping center with a high

arched glass ceiling lined with elegant

shops.

>> It's completely encased. Uh it's the

most beautiful architecture you can

imagine. And I haven't slept in a couple

of days. I'm tired. And I see this

coffee shop and I say, "This is just

like that coffee shop in the opening

scene of Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy."

>> The quintessential John Laray spy story.

I like watching spy movies. Not that my

life resembles a spy movie in any way,

shape, or form, but I went, "This works.

This is the spot." So, that's the fun

reason I picked it. The operational

reason was that I was bringing him into

a funnel. One way in, one way out. You

can't go through the back of these

stores.

>> I asked the front desk and they

recommended a coffee shop nearby. I

walked around and found a coffee shop

which is very close to my hotel.

>> So basically I am walking my guy into a

pedestrian only space. He can't drive

up. He can't surveil unless he's on

foot. One way in, one way out.

>> They have quiet seating on the second

floor.

>> Then we said we were going to be on the

second floor of the coffee shop. That

means he had to go into the coffee shop.

Fatal funnel number two. Then he had to

go upstairs. Fatal funnel number three

to put him in such a tight local there's

no way that we could miss him. So I'm

bringing him into a fatal funnel into a

fatal funnel into a fatal funnel.

>> Send me the name of the coffee shop.

>> Coffee shop is inside of gallery royale

su. I took a picture for reference.

>> Okay. I will let you know when I'm about

to be there.

>> I'll be checking WeChat at all times

tomorrow.

>> Okay. Keep in touch.

Easter Sunday dawn. David John and Mike

Regal go to a lavish Easter brunch, a

fake one staged by the FBI.

>> They made a reservation at the Hotel

Metropole in Brussels. They had a very

fine five course brunch. We basically

took every FBI resources in uh in

Brussels and we had them become the GE

Aviation team. Remember, this Easter

brunch was the reason David told Shu he

couldn't leave Brussels, and it was

entirely made up, but they had to have

one anyway in case the MSS was watching.

We had a guy sort of walk around like he

was the boss, right? Cuz if they were

watching, we needed to have the big bad

boss have a face, right? I didn't know

what the MSS was going to do in this

situation.

>> Meanwhile, across the city, dozens of

police officers are out looking for Shu.

We had surveillance out everywhere

trying to make sure these guys were

going to show up.

>> They go to the train stations assuming

he's taken a train in from Amsterdam.

But Shu is in a car, a dark-coled

Jaguar. He's being chauffeurred to

Brussels by the personal driver of the

Chinese ambassador to the Netherlands.

They were delivered for a clandestine

meeting in the ambassador's car. Just

let that wash over you for a second.

That's how confident the MSS were in

their ability to operate within the EU.

I've never been picked up by anybody at

any foreign airport ever for the FBI,

let alone get to ride around the

Ambassador's Jaguar.

>> Bradley is at the Belgian Federal Police

Headquarters in their command center.

>> I remember fairly early in the morning,

say maybe 8:30 or 9, the head Belgian

prosecutor comes into this base and very

professionally but in a flurry like, "Is

this real? Is this actually happening?"

And they said, "We we we actually think

it is. We think this is going to go

down." and she's the one who sat down

and said, "Okay, let's do this." And and

that's that's how the morning started.

>> Bradley had spent months running this

operation. But now it was Belgian police

and Belgian prosecutors who are calling

the shots and Bradley was relegated to

the sideline.

>> We don't get to participate in the

arrests. We're not law enforcement

officers in those countries. This is a

Belgian operation.

>> And that was made abundantly clear. So

when they would talk to me, they would

speak in English, but then when they

were speaking to each other, they were

speaking in French. And I speak enough

French to be dangerous. And they kept

saying, "The FBI needs the meeting to

happen before we can affect the arrest."

I said, "No, just be no." And I said,

"No, if if you see him, please, for the

love of God, arrest him."

>> So they they were under the impression

that the the target had to meet with the

engineer.

>> Correct. in order to like we needed that

to happen for the arrest to be valid and

I said no no and they all stop and they

turn and they tilt their heads at me

realizing I've been listening to their

conversations all morning immediately

switching to Flemish and I have no idea

what is happening for the rest of the

day.

>> They kept talking amongst themselves

until

>> a squawk on the radio and the Belgian

surveillance commander, she said to me,

"We think we see him. It's 11:00 in the

morning, 11:30 in the morning.

>> After all the negotiations and all the

pivots, Shu was there in Brussels, and

he was early. The meeting wasn't until

that afternoon at 3. Shu and his

colleague, Shu Hang, were there to case

the meeting spot, and Bradley was done

being patient.

>> Please just arrest him. I couldn't

imagine sitting in this space for 4

hours like this cuz I control none of

this. like I'm I'm an observer at best.

Just please please please arrest him.

And then she comes back, "Oh, we lost

him." I'm thinking, "Oh, no.

Did

>> they tell you they lost him?"

>> Mhm.

>> What goes through your mind at that

point?

>> I just wanted to get it over with.

It just needed to end.

>> Then 2 hours later, she was back. He

texted David.

>> We're here. Let me know when you are

done eating. I'll meet you in front of

the shop.

>> Standing in front of the cafe, Chu

raised his phone to snap a picture of

it. Bradley has that photo. He shows it

to us.

>> And you'll notice this gentleman here.

The reason he's a little blurry is what

happens in about the next second is four

very large, very muscular Belgian SWAT

operators walk up plain clothes. They

pick up Juan Jun and Ju Hang by their

elbows and start walking away with them

through the crowd.

>> Really? So this is literally his last

second of freedom.

There's a bunch of squawking on the

radio from the surveillance commander.

SWAT commander's radio starts squawking

and I said, "What just happened?" And

she starts closing up her log books and

stuff and says, "It's over.

>> We just arrested him."

And in my head, I think, "This is the

pinnacle of my career. I am never going

to do anything more significant that I

will ever be able to talk about than

this." And what a way for it to end.

It's over. We arrested him.

>> One of the Belgian police inspectors who

was kind of a is a more senior guy and

he's, you know, kind of a big dude with

a white beard. I just gave him a huge

hug. It was like a big bear hug. And I

think he was like, you know, no

Americans did this kind of stuff because

it was like the stress was over.

Later that afternoon, the FBI has David

send a couple more messages to Shu. They

also have him call Shu's phone. They

want it to look like David's got nothing

to do with Shu's arrest and that he's

just there waiting for him at the coffee

shop.

>> I'm here now. Are you here?

>> You know, just in case anyone else from

the MSS is paying attention.

>> I've been waiting for almost an hour and

still haven't seen you. You wouldn't

even pick up the phone. Sorry, I have to

head back to prepare for tomorrow's

meeting.

>> With that final message, the

relationship between Shu Yan Jun and

David Jun came to an end. A relationship

built on lies and manipulation.

It's safe to say they both regretted it.

I remember getting a phone call on

Easter Sunday morning early and running

up to my third floor to take the phone

call away from my kids.

>> This is Emily Gladfelter, a federal

prosecutor on the case.

>> And they were like, "They've got him."

It took me a few minutes to process. I

was like, "What? Wait, he's arrested?" I

was like, "Wow." I I surreal. like I

just cannot believe here we are.

>> When they got him to the station, talked

to him, he refused to talk.

>> Tim Mangan, another federal prosecutor

on the case.

>> He pretty clearly said, "I want a

Chinese attorney. I'm not going to speak

with you. There was an arrest warrant

there or some other documentation they

asked him to sign. He refused to sign

it."

>> The two MSS officers were now in the

custody of the Belgian police. On Shu

Hang, the police found two phones and

envelopes of cash, $7,000 and nearly

€8,000.

On one of the phones, they found a bunch

of pictures of David Jun

>> and of the GE engineers family.

>> These were sort of social media

pictures, but he had a large collection

of them.

>> If I came to talk to one of you guys,

let's say we had just met once, and I

said, "I'd like you to provide me X, Y,

and Z." And I basically have on my phone

pictures of your whole family, right? It

would freak you out. It's unnerving.

>> I mean, this was like many, many, many

photos of this guy and his family.

>> Yes.

>> You can sort of use it as leverage to

keep them working with the intelligence

officer, and we thought he was sort of

in preparation from going from the

carrot to the stick.

>> Shuhang wasn't part of the arrest

warrant, so he was released after a

couple hours. When authorities went to

access the contents of his second phone,

there was nothing there. It had been

remotely wiped.

Shu Yan Jun was also carrying two

phones. One was a Huawei phone with a

password of, I kid you not, Shu Yan Jun

1980.

The second was the iPhone, which he had

used to so diligently document his life

for years.

He was jailed in Brussels while the

Chinese government hired a law firm to

fight the extradition. But Shu pursued

other avenues.

>> There was a bizarre escape attempt.

>> A jailbreak.

>> Zu had tried to reach out to another

inmate and offered money if the person

could help him escape.

>> €50,000,

>> but it was spoiled.

I mean, this this whole investigation

and case seemed like it was out of a

movie at times and that was just like

another chapter that of course, you

know, there was going to be an escape

plan.

>> 6 months after his arrest, Shu's

extradition was approved by a Belgian

court. That meant it was time for

Bradley and Mike to fly back to get him

and bring him to the US for trial.

>> You know, we basically flew on the

director's plane over there, the FBI

director's personal jet. This is kind of

a once in a career type thing, right?

I'm a lowly young guy from southern Ohio

and this is I mean for some executives

this would be like oh what's the big

deal to me it's kind of like wow there's

a couch what's this is kind I mean to me

it's neat you know to me it's neat I'm

used to commercial just I'm a guy that's

back in coach you know going through

Atlanta and you know walking 8 miles

through Atlanta airport it's kind of

like wow you you kind of get on the

plane and you're in Belgium

>> it was a beautiful day. It was October,

so it wasn't hot. It was No, it was just

a beautiful day. Blue skies, puffy

clouds. We are at a private terminal on

the grounds of the Brussels

International Airport where our plane

has been parked. A motorcade arrives and

drives onto the tarmac. Right up to the

plane.

>> They get out, their long rifles are out.

It's not just like a couple of dudes in

suits. I mean, these are some legit

looking like Seal Team Six looking type

dudes. They open the door to the Volvo

station wagon and outdi pops.

>> He's just a mediumbu Chinese gentleman.

He doesn't stand out in any crazy way.

>> He's handcuffed. In the the European

system, at least in the Belgian system,

they don't wear prison garb. They wear

civilian clothes. So, he had sneakers

on, a pair of jeans, a button-d down,

and a sweater. But not for long. As part

of the transfer, Bradley makes Shu

change into a striped jail uniform he's

brought from Ohio.

>> I let him know that we're going to

shackle him at the feet, at the waist,

and at his wrist, and he's going to fly

back to the United States that way.

>> And Zu, when we get him on the plane, is

not combative, but also not cooperative.

A decision was made to basically just,

you know, ask him the booking questions.

name, date of birth, address, telephone

number, this kind of stuff. I think

alias was one

that's one of the standard booking

questions is aliases,

but yeah, he did not like the questions.

Uh he declined to answer some of them or

he refused to answer some of them.

>> Shu was charged with conspiring and

attempting to commit economic espionage

and steal trade secrets. He arrived in

Ohio and was sent to a federal detention

center to await his trial. It was a very

long wait, 3 years.

For much of that time, Shu was confined

to a 70 ft jail cell alone for 23 hours

a day. He communicated with his wife and

family through letters, which were often

held up for months by translation

protocols.

Then in October 2021, Shu found himself

as a defendant in an American courtroom,

a scenario he probably never imagined.

When Sho's trial finally got underway,

the pandemic was still raging.

>> The jury box was covered in plexiglass.

The witness stand had plexiglass. The

judge's bench had plexiglass. We all

wore masks.

>> This is Paula Christian, a local TV

investigative reporter who covered the

trial. As someone who regularly covers

the courts, she knows all the lawyers

and took note of shoes. He had a whole

squad from Taft, an elite Cincinnati

firm.

>> As a reporter, one of the first things

you look at when you have a defendant is

who their lawyer is. And if they have a

firm like Taft, somebody's paying for

it.

because it's too expensive for an

average person to pay for this. I mean,

Ralph Conan probably bills at $600 to

$700 an hour and they had six, seven

people on their legal team in the

courtroom. I mean, that's

thousands of dollars an hour.

>> Shu's lawyers declined repeated requests

to speak to us, and the trial wasn't

recorded, but we do have the

transcripts. The defense didn't dispute

that Shu worked for the MSS.

>> He's a recruiter. Nobody's ever hidden

from that. He's affiliated and works for

the MSS.

>> Or that Shu was trying to cultivate

aviation experts working outside China.

>> Sure, he was trying to get them to share

their expertise. Sure, he paid them and

whined them and dined them. And what

does that prove exactly? But they argued

that the information she was trying so

hard to get wasn't technically trade

secrets.

>> Believe what you will about the

government's evidence in this case,

ladies and gentlemen, but there's no way

that you can conclude beyond a

reasonable doubt that our client has

intended to steal trade secret

information. This case is about a man

who was caught up in a controversy

between the US and China over China's

advancing competency and abilities

technologically.

>> The US was overreaching. The US just

didn't want China to have any

technology. So, they were just being

spiteful.

>> That was their main argument. But they

were up against a lot

>> because how can you argue with what you

said on a recorded line or what you

wrote in a text message on your phone or

the photos you took. It's tough.

The trial stretched over 2 and 1/2

weeks. David Jun testified. So did the

Honeywell engineer Arthur Gao. So did

folks from GE and a chief inspector from

the Belgian Federal Police. Bradley was

on the stand for three days.

The last witness was James Olsen. He was

the prosecution's expert on espionage.

>> I've never seen a jury and a judge lean

in the way they did with Jim Olsen. I

mean, it was surreal.

>> The defense in cross-examining James

Olsen tried to use his own spy career

against him. There was a moment in his

cross-examination where they accused him

of lying. So, you know, you've been

undercover and you've not been honest

with your family or your friends and

whatnot. And he said something like,

"And I would do it again for this

country."

And it felt like a moment where it was

like the flag should be behind him and

you should be hearing the national

anthem and it was like a you could hear

a pin drop. It was amazing. And then on

redirect, I went up and asks, "If you'd

been caught, what would have happened?"

And he kind of looks at me and then he

looks over at you and he goes, "I'd be

right there." And points right at you.

Shu was shooting daggers at me in his

eyes.

When I looked at him, I could not help

but having a feeling of he's really not

much different from me.

He's serving his country. I served my

country. He's a spy.

I was a spy. He lived under cover. I

lived under cover. He's doing what he's

believing is right. I did what I

believed was right. How are we any

different? And so I had kind of a

momentary paying that we could easily be

trading places. I could be sitting in a

trial being convicted of espionage if

I'd been caught. And the only real

difference between Shu and me was is

that he got caught and I did.

I was not totally

unaware of the human dimension of what

we were doing potentially of sending

this man away from his family, from his

country for for many, many years. But I

was there to convict him.

This was the only time in our history

that we had an MSS staff officer

in a courtroom facing conviction in

prison in the United States. And this

was a message that I wanted to send to

China.

>> The deliberation process, if I recall,

took more than a day. That was a really

stressful time. I remember wandering

around downtown a couple days waiting

for this verdict and just thinking, what

do we do if this doesn't come out our

way?

>> And I felt a tremendous amount of weight

on our shoulders. We were concerned

that, you know, if we if we fell short

in our duty that we would cause some

sort of international incident.

The verdict comes back and the entire

courtroom is silent. You just sit and

wait for these words.

There's so much anticipation

and

he was found guilty of everything.

We reached out to China's Ministry of

Foreign Affairs about the case back in

2022 after the verdict came out and they

said, quote, "The accusations by the US

are completely fabricated. We demand the

US handle the case in a fair manner and

ensure the legitimate rights of Chinese

citizens."

When we reached out to them again this

year, they referred us to previous

statements.

A year after the trial, Shu's sentence

came down. He was given 20 years. I

thought the Zu sentence was pretty

strong.

>> This is Alan Kohler, former head of

counter intelligence at the FBI.

>> To get someone 20 years like that,

that's a huge hit for anybody who

commits economic espionage. You know, 20

months is more likely the type of

sentence that we get. But I think there

were some pretty serious aggravating

factors.

the type of information he stole, the

breadth of the effort that he was being

charged with and the sort of like

co-conspirators that were wrapped up in

it. All of that plus him being a Chinese

intelligence officer, I think that just

worked against him in this matter.

Shu didn't speak at all during his

trial, but at the sentencing hearing, he

did. He spoke through a translator.

Here's some of what he said that day.

All of this took place within the grand

contacts of the trade war between the US

and the China. All the US government has

done is to use the legal system as a

weapon in the war it wages to further

its political agenda. That has nothing

to do with respect and justice.

Your honor, I'm just an ordinary Chinese

citizen who knows nothing about

politics, nor do I know anything about

secrets. Why on earth did I get caught

into this incredible legal battle? Thus,

this whole case is merely a political

farce directed and acted out by the US

government for self arandrisement. It is

like the thief who demands that the

thief be caught.

Regardless what the sentence may be, I

will appeal this case because I stand by

my innocence.

Thank you.

Shu did appeal, but he lost. In August

2024, a federal appeals court upheld his

conviction and sentence. But Shu saga

didn't end with that prison sentence. In

2 weeks, we'll have the final episode of

our series where Shu gets an unlikely

lifeline.

>> I don't think China really had a

playbook for how to handle this.

>> You just told me about how he was quote

unquote rescued.

I'll never forget the sight nor the

sound of the FBI agents who

>> banged on the door and said FBI open the

door and barged straight in.

method.