A former Federal Reserve insider became entangled with a man US officials identify as a Chinese intelligence operative, was later blackmailed with his own nude photos, and was jailed this year for lying to investigators.
John Harold Rogers, 64, a former senior adviser in the Fed's Division of International Finance, was sentenced on 15 July to 38 months in federal prison. A jury had already acquitted him of conspiring to commit economic espionage, convicting him only of lying to investigators about what he passed to his Chinese contacts.
The distinction matters. Rogers was not convicted of spying, yet prosecutors say he handed restricted Federal Reserve material, including rate and tariff deliberations, to operatives who understood that advance knowledge of US interest-rate moves could be worth fortunes against China's roughly $1.5 trillion (£1.1 trillion) in US Treasury holdings.
How the Trap Was Set
Rogers met the man US officials identify as a Chinese intelligence operative, who used the name Hummin Lee, at a 2013 conference in Shanghai. Lonely after his children grew up, Rogers was active on dating sites and later met a woman 24 years his junior, Yu Yu, through AsianDating.com.
Over the next decade, Lee became deeply involved in Rogers' life, arranging paid lectures, funding travel, and helping to organise his wedding.
The Blackmail That Exposed Him
The pressure came later. On Instagram, Rogers exchanged messages with accounts posing as attractive women and sent nude photos of himself, some taken on his Fed-issued phone inside the central bank's gym. The scammers then demanded cash, threatened to send the images to Fed vice chair Richard Clarida, and threatened to kidnap his young daughter.
Frightened, Rogers reported the blackmail to superiors in 2020. That decision put him in front of the Fed's Office of Inspector General, where an agent asked whether he had ever shared restricted information outside the board. 'Never,' Rogers answered. That answer became the basis of the false-statements conviction that sent him to prison.
Why the Fed Is a Prime Target
In 2023 alone, the indictment says Rogers was paid roughly $450,000 (£335,000) as a part-time professor at a Chinese university, and agents later found $55,000 (£41,000) in cash at his home. Trial testimony did not establish where the money came from.
Rogers told investigators he 'owed everything' to Lee and, at his trial, said he felt 'duped' by a man he had considered a friend. Prosecutors disputed that account, telling jurors the facts read like a spy novel.
A retired Central Intelligence Agency officer told CNBC that Rogers was always a valuable target and that China keeps trying to penetrate the Fed. The case illustrates how personal relationships and access to sensitive information can create counterintelligence risks.
A Fed Still Struggling To Secure Its Secrets
The institution he served remains exposed. A Fed inspector-general report released the day Rogers was sentenced found the central bank lacked a proper programme to manage insider risk.
A September review found that a departing employee had potentially removed Federal Open Market Committee classified and other sensitive information before retiring. The findings pointed to gaps in the Fed's ability to identify and respond to the removal of information.
