U.S. Department of Justice indicts former Federal Reserve adviser John Harold Rogers for alleged economic espionage and false statements

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment and arrest of John Harold Rogers, a former Senior Adviser at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, for allegedly conspiring to steal Federal Reserve trade secrets for the benefit of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and for making materially false statements to the Federal Reserve Board Office of Inspector General. According to the indictment, Rogers worked in the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of International Finance from 2010 to 2021 and, from at least 2018, allegedly sought and shared confidential information including proprietary economic datasets, deliberations about tariffs targeting China, briefing books for designated governors, and sensitive Federal Open Market Committee deliberations and forthcoming announcements. The indictment alleges he moved information to a personal email account or printed it before travel to China, and met PRC co-conspirators posing as graduate students in hotel rooms in China to convey the information; he was also paid about USD 450,000 in 2023 as a part-time professor at a Chinese university. Rogers allegedly lied to investigators on February 4, 2020, and is charged with conspiracy to commit economic espionage and making false statements; the case is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Washington Field Office and the Federal Reserve Board Office of Inspector General. The Department noted that an indictment is an allegation and the defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.