New FBI film warns about China recruiting U.S. officials
WASHINGTON — China’s effort to recruit current and former top U.S. national security officials using social media accounts has reached such a fever pitch that the FBI has made a 30-minute movie based on a real-life incident to warn Americans about falling prey to such tactics.
The FBI and the National Counterintelligence and Security Center this week released a movie titled “The Nevernight Connection,” named after Shanghai, which is known as the Never-Night city for its ceaseless 24-hour life.
The movie portrays a fictional Daniel Landry, a retired U.S. Navy official who worked for the service’s undersea warfare office managing its undersea vehicle program, and is sought out on a professional social media platform that sounds like LinkedIn.
A man called Thomas Wu, claiming to work for Southeast Asia Maritime Institute, wants Landry to write a white paper on how unmanned undersea vehicles could help with exploiting undersea resources for commercial purposes. In exchange Landry gets offered $1,500 and an all-expenses paid trip to Shanghai to present the paper.
Wu asks Landry to ask his former Navy colleagues for the latest information and advances while preparing the paper. Only after Landry finishes his speech and is given an envelope of crisp $100 bills does he see a news headline of another American official who is arrested for helping China gain access to sensitive U.S. military information. But it’s too late by then and Landry gets arrested on his return to the United States on similar charges and gets sent to prison for 20 years.
The movie, released publicly Wednesday, was made available to U.S. intelligence agencies last month to help warn employees to be careful about falling prey to job offers online and clicking on links in emails from unknown senders, the FBI said. The agency said it was making the movie public to warn all Americans, including executives at top U.S. technology companies of the techniques used by China.
The film is based on the true-life events of a former CIA official Kevin Mallory who found himself in a similar situation and was sentenced to 20 years in May 2019, the FBI said.