In 2011, a man named Robert Mo was found near a Monsanto cornfield in Iowa. His appearance there set off a two-year FBI investigation involving car chases, surveillance planes, and airport busts. 
Robert worked for a Beijing company named DBN (大北农)。DBN had hatched a shortcut to obtaining genetically modified seeds: steal them from Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer by digging them out of the ground, then smuggle them back to China in microwave popcorn bags.
The investigation of DBN was one of dozens brought by the FBI over the past decade. Because the court proceedings dragged on for years, and because I spent as long trudging through cornfields, recreating the case scene by scene, we now have unusual insight into what happened.
DBN went so far as to buy farmland in Iowa and Illinois. Robert recruited a local seed breeder named Kevin as the unwitting foreign face of the operation.
The FBI's reaction was equally outsized, involving aerial surveillance by unmarked bureau planes registered to fake businesses & the use of a FISA warrant. A turning point came one day when the FBI showed up at Kevin's door and turned him into a reluctant informant. (⬇️not Kevin)
Then there were the victim companies in the case. By the time I finished my reporting, both companies had merged with other chemical giants. Monsanto was acquired by Bayer, meaning that the US government spent untold resources defending a company that was no longer American.
This journey also led me to examine decades' worth of intelligence theories on China and uncover a previously undisclosed FBI program using FOIA. What I found there was not encouraging. theintercept.com/2020/02/02/fbi…
For the full story, though, read the book! THE SCIENTIST AND THE SPY is out now. In this age of increasing corporate power, remember your local bookstore. indiebound.org/book/978073521…
But there is also this place. /END amazon.com/Scientist-Spy-…
