379: James Gaylord - Chasing Chi, China's Family of Spies (Part 1)

In part one of this two-part episode, retired agent Jim Gaylord reviews his espionage investigation and the prosecution of Chi Mak, his family members and associates as spies for the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Chi was an engineer who had immigrated from Kwang-Tung, China, and was employed with a U.S. company designing sensitive U.S. military and commercial technologies. Jim was assigned to determine if Chi was stealing U.S. Navy secrets from his employer. He shares evidence made public when the classified investigation became a criminal case.

Jim worked this case with retired NCIS agent Gunnar Newquist. Together with the assistance of Jim’s squad, they produced six convictions, long-term unprecedented sentences and denial of all appeals, marking this as the most successful prosecution of PRC spies ever.

Jim is the author of Chasing Chi: The FBI’s Groundbreaking Pursuit of China’s Most Prolific Spy Family. This true-life story highlights behind-the-curtain intrigues, obstacles, betrayals, and hard-won victories, while overcoming bureaucratic friction, cowardice, jeopardizing efforts to break the FBI’s historic string of espionage failures. It’s a fascinating spy thriller detailing Chi Mak’s betrayal. Learn more at his website, ChasingChiBook.com.

“We have no idea who the person is. We’ve not even been told if it’s male or female, what race, anything. So we’re looking at everybody, and we’re trying to figure out who has access to those programs that we’re told are leaking out of that facility. We narrow it down, we figure it’s probably an engineer, but it could be a secretary; it could be anybody. We slowly narrow it down, a process of elimination. So we start concentrating on them, and one of them was Chi Mak.”

“He wasn’t doing it for the money; he was doing it for the ego, and he was doing it because he was a hardcore Maoist himself. We actually heard him having conversations to that effect. There was no way he was gonna turn against China. So I knew all along we’d be trying to prosecute him.”—Retired Agent James Gaylord

Special Agent (Retired)

James E. Gaylord

7/1985 – 3/2017

Jim Gaylord served in the FBI for over 31 years. His first assignment was to the Minneapolis Field Office’s organized crime squad. He was next detailed to the U.S. Army’s Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California to learn Vietnamese, to prepare for his move to the counterintelligence and terrorism squad at the Santa Ana Resident Agency (SARA-4) out of the FBI Los Angeles Field Office. Jim worked primarily within the Little Saigon District.

In addition to being designated the case agent on the Chi Mak case, Jim conducted and supervised several other high-profile espionage investigations. During his last six years in the Bureau, he served as SARA-4’s supervisor until he reached mandatory retirement.

Jim and SARA-4 squad members received the 2006 U.S. Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award, the 2010 U.S. Attorneys’ Executive Office Director’s Award for Superior Performance, the 2011 Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Meritorious Unit Commendation, the 2008 and 2009 Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citations, the 2008 and 2009 Los Angeles U.S. Attorney’s Office Outstanding Service Awards, and 2008 and 2010 FBI Los Angeles Performance Awards.

He and other SARA-4 members have been interviewed for various magazine articles and television broadcasts by The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, CNN’s Declassified, CNBC’s Crime Inc., and U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) training videos. Jim has delivered hundreds of case briefings to academic, governmental, and professional organizations around the world.