The Sixth Bureau Episode 5: One Way In, One Way Out

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2:01Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. A quick note. This is the fifth episode of this series. If you haven't listened to the previous episodes, we recommend going back and listening in order. Thanks. About five months after GE engineer David John agreed to work with the FBI, he was on a plane with Agent Mike Regal, heading for Europe. It's stressful. He's like, I'm taking a huge risk. I'm away from my family. I'm in a foreign country. I'm doing some weird thing against the Chinese government. And we had to make it clear to him, look, you're never going to meet with him again. This is just to get him in the country.

2:43The mission? Arrest Xu Yanjun, a Chinese intelligence officer. This is something we've never, ever done before. can we actually get this guy out of China so we can get our hands on him? I was skeptical that it would work out. Like, right, we're going to get a Chinese intelligence officer and we're going to bring him back from China and we're going to try and we're like, right. At this point, I have done some crazy things. I've convinced people way more important to me than the FBI, this is going to work. It has to work. I mean, there's lots of times we try to do international arrests and they just don't work.

3:20Something happens. Someone gets tipped off. someone gets cold feet, doesn't show up. I still had that faith, but deep down you're like, man, if this breaks bad on me, I'm never going to live this down. From Bloomberg News and iHeart Podcasts, this is The Sixth Bureau. I'm Jordan Robertson. And I'm Drake Bennett.

3:47So we were in central Brussels. When David and Mike landed, they met up with Bradley. We were based out of my hotel room, in the top floor of a 16th century building. Deciding on Brussels as the site of the operation had been a process. Shue had agreed to meet David in Europe before the FBI had even figured out which country would be willing to help them. I literally called and said, all right, here's my 30-second spiel. I have an MSS officer. He's willing to come to Europe. Who's going to say yes to this? Not everyone. The FBI needed to find a country that checked a bunch of boxes. One, would they let the FBI run an operation there?

4:25Two, would they help with the arrest? Three, could they move quickly? And four, were they willing to detain and extradite Xu even at the cost of angering China? And we ultimately settled on the Belgians. So up on the top floor of the hotel, in one small room, It's Bradley, Mike, David, an FBI translator, and their Belgian chaperone. We had the most junior counterterrorism officer from the Belgian Federal Police assigned us. And by assigned us, I mean, she just sort of sat there and went, what am I doing here? You could tell she was bemused, but she was along for the ride. Things got claustrophobic.

5:05The ceiling was low, it was hot, and sometimes it didn't smell great. You know, it's fragrant. Five of us are crammed into this room, spending most of our day on the phone with Shu trying to affect the next pivot in the operation. You're there, but there's still one more pivot. Correct. Because Shu thinks David's in Paris for a work trip and that he'll meet him in Amsterdam. Shu had even suggested a specific spot. Oddly, a laser tag venue called Laser Gaming. But that wasn't going to happen, since Belgium is the country that said yes to this operation. So, on March 29, 2018, two days before she was supposed to leave China, David sends him a message.

5:46The trip to France is going pretty smoothly. However, my work schedule has been changed. My boss made me travel to the sub-branch of Safran in Belgium because we need to give him some technical help with the joint project. That said, I will not be able to make it to Amsterdam this Saturday. The pivot. But I can meet you at a hotel in Brussels this Sunday afternoon. If I was on that other end, I would be thinking, you don't tell me what to do, I tell you what to do. I'm the handler, you're the informant. He pushed back hard. He yelled at us, I have permission from the Chinese government to travel to France.

6:29I have permission from the Chinese government to travel to the Netherlands. I don't have permission to go to blankety-blank Belgium. And of course, David had to respond in real time. As the conversations or the texts are happening, our linguist is translating as quickly as possible again so that Mike or I can point, say that, say that, don't say that, say that. It was a sensitive moment. Xu was still pushing for the meeting to happen in the Netherlands. That Sunday. You can definitely make it in one day. Why don't you book your train and we can meet somewhere near the train station. But the Netherlands wasn't going to work for the FBI.

7:03So David needed a new excuse for why he couldn't even take a day trip, why he had to stay in Brussels. We spent hours talking about what we could say to make it as believable as possible. We filled a quarter of one of these notebooks with the different, well, if we said this, would that work? And someone would say, I don't think it's going to work because of this. And we'd rip it out and we'd start again. In the end, they went with their go-to excuse. We played on things that we knew had worked before. The big bad boss. Sunday is Easter. My boss takes it very seriously. Well, the boss feels so guilty about making us travel on the holiday weekend that he's going to take us out for an Easter brunch.

7:46He's reserved an Easter lunch for the traveling team and asked us to please attend. And if I don't show up, that's going to look really bad. And I can't disappoint my boss, so I can't leave Russell's. This is why I'll have time to meet you here on Sunday afternoon, but I don't have time to travel to other cities. You know, we're so sorry we can't help it. This is just a situation. I'll be back in six months or a year or whenever the next time I might be back here, maybe we can do it then. Well, that was unacceptable. It had to happen now. So Xu finally concedes. He agrees to a meeting. In Brussels.

8:26He's going to physically come. Why do you think he ultimately agrees to come to Belgium. There was so much back and forth, but eventually he agrees. I think the prize was too much. I mean, the prize was something he couldn't pass up, right? He's looking at large amounts of GE research that helps Chinese commercial aviation cut time off, saves them money, gives them a jump. So if you're Zhu and you bring in this kind of stuff, you're basically saying, I'm the guy that did it.

9:04The day before his trip, Xu messages his wife. I put a USB drive in the eyeglass box in the middle of the bookcase. It contains some encrypted documents. If something happens, someone will come to you and tell you the password. I mean, I've deployed more than 40 times. Often, I don't tell anyone where I'm going. I can't tell anyone where I'm going. but to add the comment on if something goes wrong. I've never done that. And the reaction that his wife had was what you would expect. Oh my God, don't scare me like this. It seems like he had some doubts at that point. He did, but when you talk about the risk-reward, what we were offering, what we were claiming that we were going to provide, was clearly worth the risk.

9:54I will never know if he was ordered or chose to go, given that set of circumstances, but it happened.

10:03On March 31st, Shu arrives in Amsterdam, en route to Belgium. Photos pulled from airport security cameras show him coming through customs. He's wearing a backpack, has a giant suitcase, and is dressed in all black. And he's not alone. He's with a colleague. In the photos, you can see Shu talking on his phone. He's on the phone with us. she was talking to david about where to meet in brussels so i grabbed ruth our belgian colleague who was with us who very begrudgingly i think she slept on the floor that night in my room like in a sleeping bag or something and i grabbed her and i said okay we need to find a meeting location we've gotten too far i can't let shoe tell me where we're going to meet and we just started walking around like tourists and as i'm walking around central brussels I come across Le Pond de Cotidien, this coffee shop.

10:58The chain, Le Pond Cotidien. In la Galle du Saint-Hubert. This particular location was in a 19th-century shopping center with a high-arched glass ceiling lined with elegant shops. It's completely encased. It's the most beautiful architecture you can imagine. And I haven't slept in a couple of days. I'm tired, and I see this coffee shop, and I say, This is just like that coffee shop in the opening scene of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The quintessential John Le Carré spy story. I like watching spy movies. Not that my life resembles a spy movie in any way, shape, or form. But I went, this works. This is the spot.

11:37So that's the fun reason I picked it. The operational reason was that I was bringing him into a funnel. One way in, one way out. You can't go through the back of these stores. I asked the front desk and they recommended a coffee shop nearby. I walked around and found a coffee shop, which is very close to my hotel. So basically, I am walking my guy into a pedestrian-only space. He can't drive up, he can't surveil unless he's on foot. One way in, one way out. They have quiet seating on the second floor. Then we said we were going to be on the second floor of the coffee shop. That means he had to go into the coffee shop, fatal funnel number two.

12:14Then he had to go upstairs, fatal funnel number three, to put him in such a tight locale, there's no way that we could miss him. So I'm bringing him into a fatal funnel, into a fatal funnel, into a fatal funnel. Send me the name of the coffee shop. Coffee shop is inside of Galerie Royale Saint-Hubert. I took a picture for reference. Okay, I'll let you know when I'm about to be there. I'll be checking WeChat at all times tomorrow. Okay, keep in touch.

12:45So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now, a global workforce of 300 ,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94 % of common questions. Not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. I'm Anna Navarro, and on my new podcast, Bleep with Anna Navarro, I'm talking to the people closest to the biggest issues happening in your community and around the world.

13:24Because I know deep down inside right now, we are all cursing and asking what the bleep is going on. Every week, I'm breaking down the biggest issues happening in our communities and around the world. I'm talking to people like Julie K. Brown, who broke the explosive story on Jeffrey Epstein in 2018. The Justice Department, through we counted four presidential administrations, failed these victims. Listen to Bleep with Adam Navarro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. The time is approximately 11.15 a.m.

14:07about to start a consensual telephone call with Dr. Daiwa Zhang. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside.

14:38I've never seen that much evidence in my entire career, and I don't think we'll ever see that much evidence again. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau from Bloomberg Podcasts starting on February 13th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

15:19Easter Sunday dawns. David John and Mike Riegel go to a lavish Easter brunch. A fake one, staged by the FBI. They made a reservation at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels. It had a very fine five-course brunch. We basically took every FBI resources in Brussels, and we had them become the GE aviation team. Remember, this Easter brunch was the reason David told Shue he couldn't leave Brussels. And it was entirely made up. But they had to have one anyway, in case the MSS was watching. We had a guy sort of walk around like he was the boss, right? Because if they were watching, we needed to have the big bad boss have a face, right?

15:58I didn't know what the MSS was going to do in this situation. Meanwhile, across the city, dozens of police officers are out looking for Shu. We had surveillance out everywhere, trying to make sure these guys were going to show up. They go to the train stations, assuming he's taken a train in from Amsterdam. But Shu is in a car, a dark-colored Jaguar. He's being chauffeured to Brussels by the personal driver of the Chinese ambassador to the Netherlands. They were delivered for a clandestine meeting in the ambassador's car. Just let that wash over you for a second. That's how confident the MSS were in their ability to operate within the EU.

16:35I've never been picked up by anybody at any foreign airport ever for the FBI, let alone get to ride around the Ambassador's Jaguar. Bradley is at the Belgian Federal Police Headquarters in their command center. I remember fairly early in the morning, say maybe 8.30 or 9, the head Belgian prosecutor comes into this base, and very professionally, but in a flurry. Like, is this real? Is this actually happening? And they said, we actually think it is. We think this is going to go down. And she's the one who sat down and said, okay, let's do this. And that's how the morning started. Bradley had spent months running this operation.

17:13But now, it was Belgian police and Belgian prosecutors who are calling the shots. And Bradley was relegated to the sideline. We don't get to participate in the arrests. We're not law enforcement officers in those countries. This is a Belgian operation. And that was made abundantly clear. So when they would talk to me, they would speak in English. But then when they were speaking to each other, they were speaking in French. And I speak enough French to be dangerous. And they kept saying, the FBI needs the meeting to happen before we can effect the arrest. I said, no, just be désolé. Non, non, c 'est pas de vrai.

17:46And I said, no, if you see him, please, for the love of God, arrest him. So they were under the impression that the target had to meet with the engineer. Correct. in order to, like, we needed that to happen for the arrest to be valid. And I said, no, no. And they all stop and they turn and they tilt their heads at me, realizing I've been listening to their conversations all morning, immediately switching to Flemish, and I have no idea what is happening for the rest of the day. They kept talking amongst themselves until a squawk on the radio and the Belgian surveillance commander, she said to me, we think we see him.

18:24It's 11 o 'clock in the morning, 1130 in the morning. After all the negotiations and all the pivots, Xu was there, in Brussels. And he was early. The meeting wasn't until that afternoon at 3. Xu and his colleague Xu Hang were there to case the meeting spot. And Bradley was done being patient. Please just arrest him. I couldn't imagine sitting in this space for four more hours like this, because I control none of this. Like, I'm an observer at best. Just please, please, please arrest him. And then she comes back, oh, we lost him. I'm thinking, oh no. Did they tell you they lost him? Mm-hmm. What goes through your mind at that point?

19:06I just wanted to get it over with. It just needed to end. Then, two hours later, Shu was back. He texted David. We're here. Let me know when you are done eating. I'll meet you in front of the shop. Standing in front of the cafe, Chu raised his phone to snap a picture of it. Bradley has that photo. He shows it to us. And you'll notice this gentleman here. The reason he's a little blurry is what happens in about the next second. It's four very large, very muscular Belgian slot operators walk up plainclothes. They pick up Zhu Yanjun and Zhu Hang by their elbows and start walking away with them through the crowd.

19:47Really? So this is literally his last second of freedom. there's a bunch of squawking on the radio from the surveillance commander SWAT commander's radio starts squawking and I said what just happened and she starts closing up her log books and stuff and says it's over we just arrested him and in my head I think this is the pinnacle of my career I'm never going to do anything more significant that I'd ever be able to talk about than this and what a way for it to end It's over. We arrested him. One of the Belgian police inspectors who was kind of a more senior guy, and he's, you know, kind of a big dude with a white beard, I just gave him a huge hug.

20:33It was like a big bear hug. And I think he was like, you know, no Americans did this kind of stuff. Because it was like the stress was over.

20:49Later that afternoon, the FBI has David send a couple more messages to Shu. They also have him call Shu's phone. They want it to look like David's got nothing to do with Shu's arrest, and that he's just there waiting for him at the coffee shop. I'm here now. Are you here? You know, just in case anyone else from the MSS is paying attention. I've been waiting for almost an hour and still haven't seen you. You wouldn't even pick up the phone. Sorry, I have to head back to prepare for tomorrow's meeting. With that final message, the relationship between Shu Yanjun and David Jun came to an end. A relationship built on lies and manipulation.

21:31It's safe to say they both regretted it.

21:43I remember getting a phone call on Easter Sunday morning early and running up to my third floor to take the phone call away from my kids. This is Emily Gladfelter, a federal prosecutor on the case. And they were like, they've got him. It took me a few minutes to process. I was like, what? Wait, he's arrested? I was like, wow, surreal. I just cannot believe here we are. When they got him to the station, talked to him, he refused to talk. Tim Mangan, another federal prosecutor on the case. He pretty clearly said, I want a Chinese attorney. I'm not going to speak with you. There was an arrest warrant there or some other documentation they asked him to sign.

22:26He refused to sign it. The two MSS officers were now in the custody of the Belgian police. On Xu Hang, the police found two phones and envelopes of cash,$7 ,000 and nearly 8 ,000 euros. On one of the phones, they found a bunch of pictures of David Jun. And of the GE engineer's family. These were sort of social media pictures, but he had a large collection of them. If I came to talk to one of you guys, let's say we just met once, and I said, I'd like you to provide me X, Y, and Z, and I basically have on my phone pictures of your whole family, right? It would freak you out. It's unnerving. I mean, this was like many, many, many photos of this guy and his family.

23:15Yes. You can sort of use it as leverage to keep them working with the intelligence officer. and we thought he was sort of in preparation from going from the carrot to the stick. Shu Hang wasn't part of the arrest warrant, so he was released after a couple hours. When authorities went to access the contents of his second phone, there was nothing there. It had been remotely wiped. Shu Yanjun was also carrying two phones. One was a Huawei phone with a password of, I kid you not, Shu Yanjun 1980. The second was the iPhone, which he had used to so diligently document his life for years. He was jailed in Brussels while the Chinese government hired a law firm to fight the extradition.

24:02But Xu pursued other avenues. There was a bizarre escape attempt. A jailbreak. Xu had tried to reach out to another inmate and offered money if the person could help him escape. 50 ,000 euros. But it was foiled. I mean, this whole investigation case seemed like it was out of a movie at times, and that was just like another chapter that, of course, you know, there was going to be an escape plan. Six months after his arrest, Schuseck's extradition was approved by a Belgian court. That meant it was time for Bradley and Mike to fly back to get him and bring him to the U.S. for trial. You know, we basically flew on the director's plane over there.