Tricked and Extradited: Inside the First FBI Operation to Lure a Chinese Spy to the US

The FBI won’t discuss exactly how Chinese spy Xu Yanjun came to the attention of special agents. Xu was handling a GE Aviation engineer in Ohio who specialized in composite fan-blade technology. That engineer, David Zheng, had been approached by an official from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, on LinkedIn with a request to give a presentation. So Zheng ended up traveling from his home in Ohio to China in the summer of 2017. Zheng delivered a talk on aviation technology and met officials from China’s Ministry of State Security. That meeting included Xu, who paid Zheng’s travel expenses and gave him a stipend. U.S. officials found Zheng carrying thousands in cash on his way back. Over the next year, Cincinnati-based FBI Special Agent Bradley Hull was part of a team that flipped Zheng to lure Xu out of China and, ultimately, into an American prison cell. Xu was the first Chinese spy to be extradited to the United States to stand trial. Subscribe to Sasha's Substack, HUMINT, to get more intelligence stories: https://sashaingber.substack.com/ For more information about the International Spy Museum, visit: https://www.spymuseum.org/ And if you have feedback or want to hear about a particular topic, you can reach us by email at spycast@spymuseum.org. This show is brought to you by N2K Networks, Goat Rodeo, and the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. This episode was produced by Flora Warshaw and the team at Goat Rodeo. At the International Spy Museum, Mike Mincey and Memphis Vaughan III are our video editors. Emily Rens is our graphic designer. Joshua Troemel runs our SPY social media. Amanda Ohlke is our Director of Adult Education and Mira Cohen is the Vice President of Programs.