The scientist and the spy A true story of China, the FBI, and industrial espionage

Mara Hvistendahl

Book - 2020

"A riveting true story of industrial espionage in which a Chinese-born scientist is convicted of trying to steal U.S. trade secrets, by a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. In September 2011, sheriff's deputies in Iowa encountered three neatly dressed Asian men at a cornfield that had been leased by Monsanto to grow corn from patented hybrids. What began as a routine inquiry into potential trespassing blossomed into a federal court case that saw one of the men -- Mo Hailong, also known as Robert Mo -- plead guilty to conspiracy to steal trade secrets from U.S. agro-giants DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto on behalf of the China-based DBN Group, one of the country's largest seed companies. The Mo case was part of the U.S.... government's efforts to stanch the rising flow of industrial espionage by Chinese companies -- some with the assistance of the Chinese government itself -- on American companies. And it's not an isolated one. Economic espionage costs U.S. companies billions of dollars a year in lost revenue. As former Attorney General Eric Holder once put it, "There are only two categories of companies affected by trade secret theft: Those that know they've been compromised and those that don't know it yet." Using the story of Mo and of others involved in the case, journalist Mara Hvistendahl uncovers the fascinating and disquieting phenomenon of industrial espionage as China marches toward technological domination. In The Scientist and the Spy, she shines light on U.S. efforts to combat theft of proprietary innovation and technology and delves into the efforts to slow the loss of such secrets to other nations. As technology and innovation become more and more valuable, government agencies like the FBI and companies around the world are growing increasingly concerned -- and are increasingly outspoken about -- the threats posed to Western competitiveness. General Keith Alexander, the ex-director of the National Security Agency, has described Chinese industrial espionage and cyber crimes as "the greatest transfer of wealth in history." The Scientist and the Spy explains how the easy movement of experts and ideas affects development and the important role that espionage plays in innovation, both for the spies and the spied-upon. She also asks whether the current U.S. counter-espionage strategy helps or harms the greater public good. The result is a compelling nonfiction thriller that's also a call to arms on how we should rethink the best ways to safeguard intellectual property"--

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Subjects
Published
New York : Riverhead 2020.
Language
English
Main Author
Mara Hvistendahl (author)
Edition
1st Edition
Physical Description
321 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-305) and index.
ISBN
9780735214286
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Not since Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest has a cornfield produced so much excitement. Science writer Hvistendahl writes about how the sighting of an Asian man wearing a suit and bending over corn in an Iowa farmer's field led to a two-year, multifaceted FBI investigation into industrial espionage by China. This book centers on corn its value to the U.S. and the world, the rivalry between Monsanto and DuPont to develop designer hybrid seeds, and the on-the-ground kidnapping of seeds by spies for the Chinese agronomic corporation DBG, whose goal was to develop and market their own seeds after stealing U.S. trade secrets. Hvistendahl makes industrial espionage both understandable and riveting, chiefly by focusing her narrative on two scientists (one Chinese, one American, both manipulated by DBG) who, wittingly and unwittingly, are forced into collecting seeds and information for DBG. This is a complex story, but it's presented clearly and vividly, thanks to Hvistendahl's background as a science journalist here and in China; to her exquisite pacing; and to her narrative skills. Unlike many current spy books, which focus on long-ago espionage, this one examines an investigation into the pressing, ongoing problem of industrial espionage. Hard to put down and harder to stop thinking about.--Connie Fletcher Copyright 2020 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This fascinating and well-researched study from Hvistendahl (Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men) centers on Robert Mo (aka Mo Hailong), who, as an executive for the Chinese agribusiness DBN, routinely engaged in spying. In a somewhat bumbling scheme, Mo and others from DBN spent weeks driving through central Iowa, stealing corn seeds from farms that used proprietary seeds by giants Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer and shipping them to China. In 2011, a call from a farmer to a sheriff's deputy to report three Asian men in an SUV hanging around a field sparked a two-year FBI operation that crisscrossed the country and involved an informant consulting for DBN. The stakes were high, Hvistendahl notes, as intellectual theft was costing American companies millions, but, according to the author, there was also racism in the FBI, which had long tracked Chinese scientists in the U.S. Ultimately, only Mo paid a price, pleading guilty to theft of trade secrets and spending three years in prison. His sentence served, he's currently awaiting deportation to China. Those looking for insights into the current tensions with China will be rewarded. Agent: Gillian MacKenzie, MacKenzie Wolf Literary. (Feb.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

In 2011, three Chinese scientists were apprehended in a cornfield in Iowa, suspected of stealing genetically modified seeds. This encounter was the catalyst for Hvistendahl's (Unnatural Selection) compelling tale of industrial espionage. A Midwest native, Hvistendahl spent several years working in China, and her knowledge of that country's politics and economics adds depth to the narrative. Hvistendahl centers on Robert Mo, a Chinese scholar working in the United States, following him from a failed academic career to his employment by DBN, a Chinese agricultural company. He also becomes the focus of a two-year investigation by the FBI. Some of those FBI agents are profiled in the book, as are Mo's sister and the judge who sentenced Mo. Hvistendahl writes about broader issues with force and clarity: an overview of China's intelligence agencies, the use and misuse of the FISA law, and anti-Chinese persecution by the FBI. She brings the story up to the present day with a brief discussion of the U.S.-China trade war and the impact of tariffs. An informative afterword explains her sources. VERDICT This engaging book has something for everyone; it can be read as a spy thriller, an examination of U.S.-China relations, or a case study of agricultural espionage.--Thomas Karel, Franklin & Marshall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, PA

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Chinese spying meets American incompetence in a story of several gangs that couldn't shoot straight.Practitioners of industrial espionage don't just skulk around factories photographing blueprints and machinery. In the case that journalist Hvistendahl (Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, 2011), a former Shanghai correspondent for Science, brings to light, a Chinese national was found wandering in an Iowa cornfield, looking for samples of Monsanto's genetically modified corn to take home and decode. Iowa was a natural ground zero for a crop that covers more than 93 million acres, "a swath nearly the size of California." The would-be spy was a disaffected researcher who had lost a job in an American lab and been recruited by his sister, who in turn was married to the CEO of a giant Chinese agribusiness, part of an effort to make China the undisputed leader in exporting food around the world. Arrested in the U.S., the sister went free over botched police procedures. Her brother wasn't so lucky even though helpful police officers who found him in that Iowa field referred him to local farmers and agricultural extension agencies with any questions he might have about the corn in question. As Hvistendahl observes, connecting many dots, the case had numerous implications, fueling Donald Trump's nativist threats of trade war with China and China's retaliation with a 25% tax on American corn. "When the measures finally took hold," she writes, "it was clear that farmers in Iowathe same people who helped to elect Trumpwould be hard hit." And so they were, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The author doesn't diminish the presence of Chinese spies, who have been exposed in numerous enterprises; she also digs deep into the rather nefarious business of genetic modification, which so tarnished the Monsanto name that the brand name is being retired under new ownership, "an unusual move in the acquisition of an established firm."A capable work of cat-and-mouse espionage that suggests that industrial spying is just business as usual. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Fall 2011 Deputy Cass Bollman sped toward the farm, the bright morning sun glaring through the window of his patrol car. To the north was the town of Bondurant, Iowa, where newly built houses huddled together on treeless lots, churches dominated street corners, and the marquee outside Dino's Storage read avoid all negative talk. To the south was a Tetris puzzle of cornfields. God-fearing citizens on one side, vast fields on the other, and two-lane 70th Avenue running like a ruler between the two. A few miles east of town, Bollman steered the patrol car toward the corn. The fields were a few weeks from harvest, and the corn stretched over seven feet tall. Central Iowa had blossomed into the lingering, pleasant days that make its winter hibernation bearable. Just a few minutes earlier, Bollman had been about to take a coffee break at the Git 'n' Go when an alert came over the radio for an incident out by 96th Street. South of here walking westbound there is an Asian male wearing a suit walking through a farm field. He was dropped off. Nature of incident: suspicious. Eighteen years in the Polk County Sheriff's Office had taught Bollman to suspend judgment. Bondurant was a sleepy place. Its dramas centered on grass clippings left in the street and holes dug in lawns by stray farm cats. But still Bollman saw his share of action. The area he patrolled included the outskirts of Des Moines, and in addition to making traffic stops, he had worked murders and negotiated for hostages. Once he pursued a meth-fueled driver in a car chase that ended with the driver's girlfriend being flung to her death in a grisly crash. Best-case scenario, he thought, the man in the field was simply an unusually well-dressed farmworker whom a neighbor had mistaken for an intruder. Worst-case scenario, the man was burying a body. Bollman slowed the patrol car to a stop in a grassy clearing alongside a drainage ditch. About a hundred yards into the field was a thin, neatly dressed man. In the distance, row upon row of stalks lined up like infantry. The corn between the man and the road had been cleared, allowing Bollman a direct line of sight. To his left was a cheery stucco dwelling with a broad veranda. A white picket fence encircled a pasture for grazing horses. Two other deputies arrived around the same time and were on their way out to talk to the man, so Bollman walked over to the house to chat with the farmer who owned the land. The farmer worked this land with his brother, planting part of it for their own use and part of it under contract with Monsanto. He told Bollman that he'd been out doing his morning rounds when he spotted the unfamiliar man walking on the Monsanto plot. The corn the farmer grew for Monsanto was genetically modified inbred seed that the company used to produce commercial hybrids, which were sold at great profit to farmers for the next year's planting and eventually turned into food or fuel: perhaps Doritos, perhaps ethanol. The seeds had been spliced with genes that made them resistant to certain pesticides-most likely the Monsanto weed killer Roundup-allowing the farmers who eventually purchased the commercial offspring to freely spray for weeds or insects without killing their crop. The company considered them valuable intellectual property. Monsanto kept the locations of such contract plots secret and enforced this secrecy through aggressive lawsuits. Unlike the fields where farmers grew commercial corn, which sported small guideposts that doubled as advertisements for seed lines (Pioneer 3394, DeKalb 62-55), the Monsanto plot was unmarked. Even the farmer himself knew little about the seed growing on his land. For part of the season, that was sufficient protection. Only locals who watched the Monsanto truck arrive to measure growth or spray pesticides knew that certain fields grew proprietary inbred seeds. The inbred seeds were planted in a pattern, with one or two rows of seeds designated as "males" for every four to six rows of "females." Then in mid-summer, as the commercial corn in the surrounding fields stood tall, Monsanto sent in machines to detassel the female rows of corn, shearing off their yellow, pollen-laden crowns in a mass spaying, leaving only the male plants intact. Soon after, the males fertilized the females, and then the company mowed down the male rows of corn. The field now looked like a buzz cut with lines shaved into it, making it easy for outsiders to identify. And the man looked like an outsider. It was his face that the farmer had noticed first. The man had angular features, with a broad forehead framed by a receding flop of black hair. But more important was the way those features combined in the farmer's mind to cancel out other details. Bondurant, population 3,860, is 97 percent white. The man was not. The man walked with his head down, the farmer reported, as if he were scanning the ground. After considering the man's race, the farmer thought about his clothes-khakis, dress shoes, a short-sleeve collared shirt. And he'd been dropped off by a gray SUV, which had then driven away. Why the hell did the car leave? The farmer knew that after the detasseling process, a few stray inbred ears-what in the industry were called escapes-often lingered on the ground. Thinking that something suspicious might be at hand, he called his wife, who worked as a police officer one town over, and she called Polk County dispatch, which sent out the alert that blaked over Bollman's radio. At some point in this telephone chain, the stranger's business-casual outfit became a suit, and his race became his defining attribute. As Bollman and the farmer stood outside the farmhouse talking, the gray SUV the farmer had seen dropping the man off zoomed past. "Well," the farmer said. "There it is." The other deputies were still talking with the man in the field, so Bollman got back behind the wheel of his patrol car and sped off to pursue the SUV. Flicking on his lights, he soon fell in behind the vehicle. He could see the backs of two heads. The lights worked; a quarter mile or so from the house, the SUV pulled over to the side of the road. The two men ramained still as Bollman approached the driverÕs window. Bollman asked the men for identification. The driver was Robert Mo, a man identified on his license as Hailong Mo. He was forty-two and lived in Boca Raton, Florida. His head was shaved, and he had broad cheeks that tapered to an undefined jaw. His companion was an older man with taut lips that occasionally shifted into a nervous grin. He was identified on his Chinese passport as Li Shaoming. The man from the field was named Wang Lei. Robert Mo did the talking, and he was utterly polite. He explained that his two companions were visiting from China, where they researched agronomy. The men were driving across the Midwest looking at crops. That they would come to Iowa made sense. Corn was big business, both for the state and for the world. Corn is in the animal feed that fattens cows and chickens, and in the high-fructose corn syrup that sweetens ketchup, soda, and salad dressing. Over 90 percent of the starch and 56 percent of the sweeteners in the American diet come from corn. Fifty-six is also the percentage of a McDonald's chicken nugget that is corn. For many years the fungus that produces penicillin was grown in a corn by-product, and many cosmetics contain corn. Altogether, the crop covers ninety-three million acres in the United States, a swath nearly the size of California. And Iowa, which produces more corn than any other state, is the center of the industry. Bollman wondered, though, how much could you actually learn by just looking at a field? To Robert Mo he said, "Have you been up to Iowa State and talked to them at the university?" It was a fair question. Iowa State was a big land grant university with a strong agriculture program, a sort of mecca for the study of corn. At football games in Ames, it was not unusual to see a man in a corncob costume leading cheers. It also received millions of dollars in grants from Monsanto for endowed professorships, large-scale research projects, and graduate student fellowships, so for people looking to learn about Monsanto seed, it was not a bad choice. But Mo's answer was vague. Soon Bollman's colleagues showed up with Wang Lei in the back of their patrol car. Bollman returned to his vehicle to run a basic background check. It came up clean on all three men. He let the men off with a warning. "If you're going to be on somebody's property, you need to let them know," he said. Before the men sped off, one of the other deputies recommended speaking with some local farmers with extensive crop knowledge. Maybe one of them could help the Chinese visitors with their agronomy research, he suggested. In Iowa, people were nice almost to a fault, especially when it came to an interest in corn. After the men left, Bollman turned to the friendly deputy. "You know, you don't necessarily need to be telling him that," he said. "About farms to visit." "Oh, these guys are OK," his colleague replied. "Something doesn't seem right here," Bollman insisted. "Why haven't they gone up to Iowa State?" Later that day, the memory of the incident began to bug him. He filed a report, just in case. He filled in the lines at the top of the form, leaving other identifiers blank: Type of Suspicious Activity: TRESPASSING IN FARM FIELD Name: HAILONG MO Race: ASIAN Excerpted from The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage by Mara Hvistendahl All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.