The Scientist and the Spy: China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage | Mara Hvistendahl

In September 2011, sheriff’s deputies noticed three ethnic Chinese men near an Iowa cornfield. What started as a trespassing inquiry turned into a two-year FBI operation in which investigators bugged the men’s rental cars, used a warrant intended for foreign terrorists and spies, and flew surveillance planes over corn country – all to protecting Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer trade secrets. In The Scientist and the Spy, Mara Hvistendahl describes the unusually far-reaching investigation, which pitted a veteran FBI special agent assigned to fight a national-security priority against Florida resident Robert Mo, who after his academic career faltered took a questionable job with a Chinese agricultural company as a way to support his family. Industrial espionage by Chinese companies, a real issue, is among the reasons that the Trump administration gives when explaining the genesis of the trade war, and a top counterintelligence target of the FBI. Have efforts to address the problem been successful?