Preview: The Sixth Bureau, Episode 1

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.

Today's day is Wednesday, April twenty fifth, twenty eighteen. The time is three twelve pm. The following is a consensual body recording with the subject G Chow Chuen. The recording starts now.

There's a guy sitting in a red Chevy Malibu in front of an apartment complex near downtown Chicago. He's waiting for someone to walk out of the apartment building. After a few minutes, the person does. He's young, and he's wearing a warm up jacket and glasses. He has a buzz cut. His name is G Chow Chun. The guy in the red car gets out, walks towards G and yells to him in Vandarin.

You yes, hi Hi, How may I help you? He said, A good time to talk.

I beg your pardon is something I like to.

Talk to you about.

We were all holding our breadth because this is that interaction that we've prepared for.

The two men are being watched.

Geez a little confused, little flustered, and you can see that in his body language.

He keeps this distance.

You are a fandom. An jine sent me to you.

This reference to Nanjing it's code. It's a way of saying, hey, we know the same people. And G he understands it.

Oh, I get it now. I think.

At that point, Jee's demeanor relaxed and their body language got closer.

He said to talk roughly, how long will it take?

McCalls puck over there in red.

No problem, No problem.

The two men walked towards the red car and get in.

I'm not sure if you are aware something went down with the friends in on Jean?

I am not aware.

Do you know whom I am referring to?

She hesitates. The man pulls out his phone.

Let me show you this.

Shoey and Jean shoe Yan June.

I have heard of him?

Have you heard that something happened to him? Viciately, I am not aware.

The stranger says his name is Chen and suggests that the two of them goes somewhere more private than this car. He says he has a room at the Hyatt, which is nearby. At first, G tries to get out of it.

I really don't have time right now, I apologize.

But Chen pushes back, This is.

Important and people have to issues such as this. Talk with you. They come to me. But I do not want to talk too much about it, because okay, I understand.

G gives in.

They drive to the hotel, and it was immediate, let's start moving, let's start getting into place. So at that point I left for the hotel and got to the lobby.

Chen parks the car and the two men walk into the hotel.

I am simply a spectator sitting near the hotel bar and jok my afternoon. But my true goal is to keep my eyes on the two individuals that are briskly walking into the hotel lobby and making their way to the elevator.

The two men take the elevator up to a room. G sits down at a small table at the foot of the unmade bed.

We'd already got into the hotel room and pleased a camera.

Chen takes off his coat and drapes it over a chair. He's dressed like an accountant, a blue button down khakis and a cell phone holster. He closes the curtains, but that plunges the room into complete darkness, so he reopens them. They both laugh awkwardly.

Chen sits down. He pulls a sheet of paper out of his pocket, unfolds it, and hands it across the table. It's a recent article from a Belgian newspaper. Chinese spy arrested in Brussels at the request of the United States. The spy is Shoe Yan June, the same person Chen name dropped a G back in his car. G knows Shoe Yan June well. Shoe works for China's Ministry of State Security, or MSS, and so does G. Both of them are spies.

We were aware of G Chao chun relationship with his MSS handler Zu Yanjin. Our goal was to use the information that his handler was arrested.

Chen tells G that the friends in Nanjing don't know how Hue Yan Jean's cover was blown.

We do know if the problem was with your communications with them. We don't know why is the US onto him. So I was sent to let you know to stop contacting them for now.

Okay, Chen warns G you could now be in danger. He hands GA cell phone. He says G should only contact him from now on and only on this device.

Your handler was arrested. Don't talk to anybody else this time. Any information that you need to relay back should go through me.

Chen's making it clear I am now the only person you can trust.

So they sent me here to talk to you, but at this time, please stay low key. Don't send them any test messages, don't send them recheck messages, don't email them, because we don't know where things went wrong, So like nothing had happened at normal.

Uh huh.

The two men leave the hotel room and Chan drives G back to his apartment. Before G gets out of the car, Chen makes sure he has the cell phone.

Did you crap the cell phone? Yes, it's in my pocket. Thank you for your help. Give me a bit of time. Don't tell anyone about.

This, okay.

The whole interaction lasts about two hours. Chan drives off parks and speaks into a hidden microphone.

Today day is April twenty fifth, twenty eighteen. The time is five three pm, ending the consentual monitoring.

What G didn't know that afternoon was that this stranger off the street who knew his name and his biggest secret, was actually an undercover FBI agent, and the person watching them was an agent two.

A lot of what the undercover agent had said to G was a lie, but one key detail was true. Hue Yen June, G's MSS handler had been.

Arrested, who announced federal criminal charges for conspiracy to commit economic espionage and theft of trade secrets che in.

Federal court in Cincinnati.

Chue wasn't just G's handler. He was running MSS operations all over the world, and he was at the center of one of the most significant spy rings the FBI has ever taken down.

The MSS is believed to be the world's largest intelligence agency, but the people who work there are basically ghosts. We rarely learn their names, and even when we do, it's usually an alias. Chu Yen June was the first intelligence officer ever to be lured out of China, arrested and tried in the US.

We had never been able to convict in the United States and put in prison a staff MSS officer, so it was very clear to me that we were making history.

What this case cracked open for the first time was a view from inside the MSS, revealing thousands of pages of emails, chats, audio recordings, classified Chinese government documents, even Chu's personal diary.

It was just strange the way he kept records of everything, not only what happened, but his own feelings about them.

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

At the heart of Hugh's mission was an advanced technology that China has been after for years, one that has proven uniquely difficult to copy, much lesser pass ready to take offs about to takeo the jet engine.

The jet engine one of the marvels of this century of marbles.

It was a marvel when it was invented over eighty years ago, and it still is today. Only a few countries in the world know how to make them really well.

China has said this is a national priority that we get this information. The MSS was tesked to do it. It fell down to Huey Nun at that time.

He's right out of Central Casting ju.

Is basically out there trying to steal corporate secrets. Is doing that with the full support and cooperation of his government.

He did it multiple times over multiple years, right through extensive network around the world.

These are things that could be catastrophic.

The idea that we could get shoe it opens up so many doors to understanding what the Chinese government is up to and what information they have about us, how they work.

It's like a once in a lifetime of opportunity.

Because the American people truly understood the scope of Chinese espionage inside the United States right now, they'd be shocked, they'd be outraged.

It's the people of the United States who are the victims of what amounts to Chinese theft on a scale so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of.

Wealth in human history.

Stealing American technology, giving it to Chinese companies who can then undercut American companies and Americans go out of business. That is their stated goal. They want to replace the United States as the world's only superpower, and they're on track to do what their claiming they're going to do.

There's a lot of change and straight up chaos happening right now, some of it manned up being noise, but we are witnessing the formation of a new world order, and one thing's clear. China is the new economic and military superpower alongside the US. The two countries have been going head to head for the last few decades. Not that long ago, the US was still ahead of China in almost every advanced technology. That time has passed, China's caught up in so many ways, thanks to a ton

I'm Drake Bennett. This is a story of the inner workings of one of the world's most mysterious and powerful spy agencies, in how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets.

On the next episode, we are in the business of exploiting your weakness, your needs, your vulnerabilities, and we're good at it.

That recording was almost dumb luck. I cannot believe they didn't turn that recording off.

The helicopter that the Marine Corps is going to fly, the next level helicopter. There's no reason that the Chinese governm needs to know the specifications of that. There's no reason an employee of any American company should be prepared to pass that sort of information over