A former senior Federal Reserve employee was allegedly lured by a Chinese intelligence operative through an Asian dating website and blackmailed with explicit photographs, according to newly reported details.
John Harold Rogers, 65, was arrested by FBI agents in January 2025 as he walked his dog through his leafy suburban neighborhood in the Washington, DC, area.
The arrest came only days before Rogers was due to travel to China on a family vacation with his wife and daughter, CNBC reported.
Although Rogers ultimately avoided an espionage conviction, federal prosecutors said he could not escape responsibility for lying to investigators.
He was convicted of making false statements to investigators and sentenced to 38 months in prison in July.
‘John Rogers spent years secretly funneling sensitive Federal Reserve information to Chinese spies, then looked investigators in the eye and lied about it. And when that wasn’t enough, he lied again under oath at trial,’ US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement.
Federal prosecutor Nicholas Hunter told jurors that the case sounded like something from a “spy novel.”
‘There was sex. There was money, manipulation, secret meetings with shady characters in China, fake identities, lies, trickery, and deceit,’ Hunter said.
A former senior Federal Reserve employee was allegedly seduced by a Chinese spy through an Asian dating website and blackmailed over explicit nude photographs, according to new reports
FBI agents arrested John Harold Rogers, 65, in his Washington, DC-area neighborhood in January 2025. He was later convicted of making false statements to investigators and sentenced to 38 months in prison in July
Rogers resigned in 2021 and relocated to Shanghai to teach at Fudan University before federal agents arrested him
Rogers held a sensitive position overseeing research in the Federal Reserve’s international finance division. But after his four adult children had left home, the lonely single father joined AsianDating.com, where he sent explicit nude photographs to women he met online.
His search for companionship took a dangerous turn after he attended a Federal Reserve conference in Shanghai in 2013 and met “Hummin Lee,” an alias allegedly used by Chinese intelligence operative Jin Chuan.
Lee soon became deeply involved in Rogers’ personal affairs, sending him gifts and helping him begin a relationship with Yu Liu, a Chinese woman 24 years his junior.
Rogers met her through the dating website in 2016.
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The relationship progressed rapidly. Lee paid for trips and reportedly produced a divorce certificate within seven hours after Yu Liu’s former husband demanded $12,000 to sign the necessary papers.
After Yu Liu became pregnant and Rogers proposed, the couple married in Hong Kong in March 2018.
Lee allegedly managed nearly every detail of the marriage, from organizing the wedding and witnessing the prenuptial agreement to accompanying the couple to the hospital when their daughter was born.
‘I owe everything to him,’ Rogers told investigators. ‘The baby wouldn’t have happened, the relationship with my wife wouldn’t have happened… and I love him like a brother.’
According to prosecutors, Lee also questioned Rogers about confidential aspects of his work, including US financial policy, relations between the United States and China, and trade policy details.
Roger shared those details with him.
His search for romance proved disastrous when he attended a 2013 Fed conference in Shanghai and crossed paths with ‘Hummin Lee’ – an alias for Chinese intelligence operative Jin Chuan
The whirlwind romance moved with speed, with Lee funding trips and producing a divorce certificate in just seven hours when Yu Yu’s ex-husband demanded $12,000 to sign papers
A former senior Federal Reserve official who sought love on an Asian dating site became entangled with an alleged Chinese spy – then got blackmailed over nude photos, according to a report
The marriage rapidly imploded after another woman moved into Rogers’ Virginia home, sparking a violent brawl between the two and a physical altercation.
Back on the hunt online, the economist used his official Fed-issued phone to send explicit nude photos to Instagram models – including naked snaps taken inside Federal Reserve headquarters.
When extortionists threatened to send the graphic snaps to Fed bosses and kidnap his young daughter, Rogers alerted central bank officials in 2020. It is unclear who is implicated in the blackmail.
The confession accidentally exposed his Chinese contacts to federal investigators, whom prosecutors say he repeatedly lied to under questioning.
He resigned in 2021 and moved to Shanghai to teach at Fudan University before the feds finally caught up with him and he was arrested.
A lawyer for Rogers said in a statement that he denies the allegations in the indictment and that his client will have ‘comment at a later date.’
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