Introducing: The Sixth Bureau - podcast episode cover

Introducing: The Sixth Bureau

Bloomberg Businessweek
Feb 15, 2026•1 min
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Episode description

It’s an open secret that the Chinese government has engaged in a global campaign to acquire intellectual property from foreign rivals. At the center of that campaign is the Ministry of State Security, China’s elusive intelligence agency. The US has apprehended hundreds of people accused of giving information to the MSS, but the agency’s inner workings have been a mystery –  until now.

The Sixth Bureau from Bloomberg News follows an MSS intelligence officer whose mission was to acquire the crown jewels of American aerospace companies. With aliases, blackmail and the occasional break-in, he targeted corporate giants. That is, until his sloppiness – and a cunning FBI sting – led to a stunning reversal: Xu Yanjun became the first Chinese intelligence officer ever convicted on American soil.

The Sixth Bureau is the story of superpowers, their secrets and how one Chinese spy got caught.

Listen to episodes 1 and 2 now on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

This is Special Agent Regal Special Agent Bradley Hall. The time is approximately eleven fifteen AM, about to start consensual telephone call with doctor Day was.

Speaker 2

Saying, China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world, but in twenty seventeen, the FBI got inside.

Speaker 3

Wait that's hey, I use it.

Speaker 4

I've never seen that much evidence in my entire career, and I don't think we'll ever see that much evidence again.

Speaker 5

I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question of his life. And that's a unicorn.

Speaker 6

This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets.

Speaker 2

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