US Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said: “Pflugbeil’s actions stood to benefit the PRC in a critical industry with national security implications.”
Beijing’s honeytraps aren’t only romantic. They’re economic.
US officials warn that Chinese “pitch competitions” lure startups into revealing their business plans — or worse, their intellectual property.
Some contests even record participants and demand access to personal data.
“It’s a counterintelligence risk,” said one official.
“They may simply take your idea, exploit it and patent it, stealing your financial future.”
The China (Shenzhen) Innovation and Entrepreneurship International Competition, held this year in cities from Boston to Tokyo, raised red flags after participants were shadowed by officials and wired with microphones.
One biotech CEO said: “They would record everything I would say, do and then ask questions like a reporter would.”
When his firm won $50,000, the organisers wired the prize straight to his personal bank account.
Weeks later, federal funding for his firm was frozen.
Moscow, meanwhile, is doubling down on its old-school seduction operations.
Russia’s “red-haired temptress” Anna Chapman — once the face of Putin’s 2010 spy ring — is reportedly back under a new alias, Anna Romanova, fronting a Kremlin-linked intelligence museum in Moscow.
Her return to the espionage stage comes after years of boasting that her “sex appeal worked like magic” on male targets.
Another infamous “sex spy”, Aliia Roza, once claimed she was taught “sex techniques” and “how to make men fall in love” at a Russian military academy.
“Sex is a very important part of the relationship,” she said.
“It’s probably 80 per cent where the person only feels like trusting you according to that sex experience.”
In London, two Bulgarian women — Cvetelina Gencheva and Tsvetanka Doncheva — were recently exposed as part of a Russian “honeytrap” ring that spied on Putin’s opponents.
They worked inside a “highly sophisticated” espionage cell run by Orlin Roussev, a former tech worker, who allegedly deployed seduction and surveillance to infiltrate Western networks.
One target, journalist Roman Dobrokhotov, was followed onto a plane, where spies watched him type in his phone PIN.
Police say the group’s honeytrap missions put lives at risk.
China’s espionage tactics also have a familiar face.
Fang Fang, the “honeytrap” who infiltrated US politics between 2011 and 2015, seducing two mayors and cultivating links to rising Democrats, including Rep. Eric Swalwell.
FBI surveillance caught her in sexual encounters with U.S. officials before she fled to China.
Her mission was to charm her way into political circles, raise campaign cash, and funnel influence back to Beijing.
