by WorldTribune Staff, February 3, 2025 Real World News
A former senior adviser for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (FRB) has been arrested and charged with passing Federal Reserve secrets to communist China, the Department of Justice said.

John Harold Rogers, who worked in the FRB’s Division of International Finance from 2010 until 2021, was arrested on Jan. 31.
“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 U.S. 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.”
According to the indictment, the confidential information that Rogers allegedly shared with his Chinese co-conspirators, who worked for the intelligence and security apparatus of China and who posed as graduate students at a PRC university, is economically valuable when secret.
China holds a large amount of U.S. foreign debt (approximately $816 billion as of October 2024). The Justice Department said the data Rogers shared with his co-conspirators “could allow China to manipulate the U.S. market, in a manner similar to insider trading. Gaining advance knowledge of U.S. economic policy, including advance knowledge of changes to the federal funds rate, could provide China with an advantage when selling or buying U.S. bonds or securities.”
The indictment alleges that, from at least 2018, Rogers exploited his employment with the FRB 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. He allegedly 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.
The indictment said that, 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. In 2023, Rogers was paid approximately $450,000 as a part-time professor at a Chinese university.
“On Feb. 4, 2020, in response to questioning by the FRB-OIG, Rogers lied about his accessing and passage of sensitive information and his associations with his co-conspirators,” the Justice Department said.
Rogers is charged with conspiracy to commit economic espionage and with making false statements.
“As alleged, the defendant violated the trust placed in him by the Federal Reserve Bank by putting U.S. trade secrets in the hands of his PRC co-conspirators, knowing full well that such information would benefit the PRC Government and PRC instrumentalities,” said Devin DeBacker, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “The Justice Department will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to disrupt economic espionage and protect our national security.”
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