02592cam a2200313 i 4500 419155323 TxAuBib 20200323120000.0 191011s2020||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2019037842 9780735214286 HRD 28.00 073521428X HRD 28.00 TxAuBib rda Hvistendahl, Mara. Scientist and the spy. The Scientist and the spy [BOOK] : a true story of China, the FBI, and industrial espionage / Mara Hvistendahl. New York : Riverhead Books, 2020. 321 pages ; 24 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references and index. In September 2011, sheriff’s deputies in Iowa encountered three ethnic Chinese men near a field where a farmer was growing corn seed under contract with Monsanto. What began as a simple trespassing inquiry mushroomed into a two-year FBI operation in which investigators bugged the men’s rental cars, used a warrant intended for foreign terrorists and spies, and flew surveillance planes over corn country—all in the name of protecting trade secrets of corporate giants Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer. In The Scientist and the Spy, Hvistendahl gives a gripping account of this unusually far-reaching investigation, which pitted a veteran FBI special agent against Florida resident Robert Mo, who after his academic career foundered took a questionable job with the Chinese agricultural company DBN—and became a pawn in a global rivalry. Industrial espionage by Chinese companies lies beneath the United States’ recent trade war with China, and it is one of the top counterintelligence targets of the FBI. But a decade of efforts to stem the problem have been largely ineffective. Through previously unreleased FBI files and her reporting from across the United States and China, Hvistendahl describes a long history of shoddy counterintelligence on China, much of it tinged with racism, and questions the role that corporate influence plays in trade secrets theft cases brought by the U.S. government. Provided by publisher. 20200323. United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. Business intelligence United States. Confidential business information United States. Spies China. Agricultural industries United States.