In a previous age, they might have begun a mole hunt, looking for a single traitor in a position to share this critical information with the other side, or perhaps scoured their records for a breach in a secret communications platform.īut instead, CIA officials believed the answer was likely data-driven-and related to a Chinese cyberespionage campaign devoted to stealing vast troves of sensitive personal private information, like travel and health data, as well as U.S. officials, lacking a smoking gun, puzzled over how China had managed to expose their spies. The Chinese “never should have known” who or where these undercover CIA personnel were. Part 3: As Trump’s Trade War Raged, Chinese Spy Agencies Enlisted Private FirmsĪt the CIA, these anomalies “alarmed chiefs of station and division leadership,” said the first former intelligence official. personal data over the last decade-and its consequences. intelligence and national security officials, tells the story of China’s assault on U.S. This series, based on interviews with over three dozen current and former U.S. intelligence and national security officials, tells the story of China's assault on U.S. operatives were likely a response to these U.S. “And they know that.” China’s new aggressive moves to track U.S. It’s where the targets are.” The CIA recruits “Russians and Chinese hard in Africa,” said a former agency official. Heat map Belt and Road”-China’s trillion-dollar infrastructure and influence initiative-“and you’d see our activity happening.

“We can’t get to them in Beijing, but can in Djibouti. The CIA had been taking advantage of China’s own growing presence overseas to meet or recruit sources, according to one of these former officials. spy agencies’ own sophisticated technical countersurveillance capabilities. side to know they had identified the CIA operatives, disrupting their missions other times, however, it was much more subtle and only detected through U.S. intelligence officials speculated that the Chinese wanted the U.S. Sometimes, the surveillance was so overt that U.S. The surveillance by Chinese operatives began in some cases as soon as the CIA officers had cleared passport control. intelligence began noticing an alarming pattern: Undercover CIA personnel, flying into countries in Africa and Europe for sensitive work, were being rapidly and successfully identified by Chinese intelligence, according to three former U.S.

Electronic spy network