Former Federal Reserve adviser indicted and arrested for alleged espionage in dealings with China

Federal authorities have arrested a former Federal Reserve senior adviser for allegedly giving inside economic information to China.

A grand jury indictment accuses John Harold Rogers, 63, of Vienna, Virginia, of stealing Federal Reserve trade secrets and selling them to Chinese intelligence officials for at least $450,000 by posing as a university professor in China. He is also accused of lying to Federal Reserve investigators and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau officials.

The Department of Justice announced Rogers’ indictment and arrest on Friday, the same day he made his first appearance before a Washington court. Rogers is being held without bond and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday, according to court records.

Jonathan Gitlen, an attorney for Rogers, said via email Saturday that “Dr. Rogers denies the allegations as set forth in the indictment.” Rogers will say more “at a later date,” Gitlen said.

Assistant Director Kevin Vorndran of the FBI Counterintelligence Division said in a statement that Rogers “betrayed his country while employed at the Federal Reserve by providing restricted U.S. financial and economic information to Chinese government intelligence officers.” The information, Vorndran continued, “could allow adversaries to illegally gain a strategic economic advantage at the expense of the U.S.”

The Justice Department said the information “could allow China to manipulate the U.S. market” in a manner similar to insider trading. The department noted that China, as of October 2024, held about $816 billion in U.S. foreign debt and that Chinese financial players could benefit from inside knowledge of U.S. economic policy, such as advance notice of federal funds rate changes, when making decisions about buying and selling U.S. debt instruments.

Rogers, a U.S. citizen with a doctorate in economics, worked for the Federal Reserve from 2010 until 2021, according to the indictment.

According to the indictment, Rogers, a U.S. citizen with a Ph.D. in economics, worked as a Senior Adviser in FRB’s Division of International Finance of the FRB from 2010 until 2021, where he would have had access to a range of classified information.

Prosecutors allege that Rogers and two Chinese co-conspirators began communicating as early as 2013. The indictment asserts that Rogers later forwarded protected information to his personal email or made print copies to pass along to his co-conspirators. The cache allegedly included proprietary economic data and analysis, briefing books written for Federal Reserve governors, details of Federal Open Market Committee deliberations and future announcements, and accounts of conversations about tariffs targeted at China, according to the indictment.

Rogers is accused of meeting co-conspirators in China for multiple visits, under the guise of him being an academic instructor teaching them as students. The indictment alleges that in 2023, Rogers received $450,000 as a part-time professor at a Chinese university.