The U.S. Justice Department revealed on Wednesday the arrest of a former Air Force fighter pilot, accused of unauthorized training of Chinese military personnel.
Gerald Brown, aged 65, was taken into custody in Indiana upon his recent return to the U.S. from China, where he had been residing since December 2023, according to a statement from the Justice Department.
The allegations claim that Brown “conspired with foreign nationals to offer combat aircraft training to Chinese Air Force pilots” without securing the necessary license from the U.S. State Department, the statement further detailed.
FBI Director Kash Patel shared on social media: “Major story… the FBI and our partners have arrested a former US Air Force Pilot who was allegedly training pilots in the Chinese military.”
John A. Eisenberg, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, stated, “The United States Air Force trained Major Brown to become an elite fighter pilot and entrusted him with national defense. He is now charged with training Chinese military pilots.”
Throughout his 24-year tenure with the U.S. Air Force, Brown “held command over sensitive units responsible for nuclear weapons delivery systems, led combat missions, and worked as a fighter pilot instructor and simulator instructor across various fighter and attack aircraft,” as reported by the DOJ.
He retired from the military in 1996 and worked as a cargo pilot, the statement said, but he later began a role with two U.S. defense contractors training pilots to fly the A-10 and state-of-the-art F-35 fighter jets, according to the statement.
Brown allegedly began negotiating a contract in August 2023 with Stephen Su Bin — a Chinese national who was imprisoned in the U.S. for four years beginning in 2016 over another espionage scheme — and traveled in December 2023 to China to begin his training job.
“The Chinese government continues to exploit the expertise of current and former members of the U.S. armed forces to modernize China’s military capabilities,” said Roman Rozhavsky, an official with the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division.
“This arrest serves as a warning that the FBI and our partners will stop at nothing to hold accountable anyone who collaborates with our adversaries to harm our service members and jeopardize our national security,” he added.
