𝗔 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗳𝗳 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱 $𝟭𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗨𝗦 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀, 𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗲𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗩𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘇𝘂𝗲𝗹𝗮 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗲-𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝘀.
When a man identifying himself as Chris Chen reached out this winter to an aide on a House committee focused on threats from China, he came armed with a lucrative offer.
The staff member, Chen proposed, could earn $10,000 or more by barely lifting a finger. All he would need to do is agree to phone calls every other week to share information about the committee’s work and US foreign policy about China.
Insights into US trade or national-security issues, including the Trump administration’s plans for Venezuela in the aftermath of the January military operation there, would be especially valuable, Chen said. To sweeten the pot, Chen repeatedly promised to send the aide $2,000 up front.
The offer seemed too good to be true. Instead of quietly accepting the deal, the aide reported it to his bosses on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. The panel quickly concluded Chen was not the Singapore-based business consultant he claimed to be, but instead likely a Chinese intelligence officer or contractor seeking a new recruit.
Rather than cut off contact, the committee’s Republican majority staff agreed to keep talking to Chen. They recorded a series of calls this winter to learn more about Chen’s tactics and interests.
Transcripts of those calls depict a determined, at times impatient, individual eager to earn the trust of his mark and get down to business. Chen mixes holiday greetings with elaborate questions about manufacturing in Vietnam and Mexico and the future of Venezuela’s oil industry.
The outreach by Chen to an aide on the very committee responsible for investigating Chinese national-security threats appears to provide an unusually vivid portrait of how Beijing’s spy services seek to gain access to sensitive information from within the corridors of power in Washington.
Seeking to cultivate a source in the heart of a congressional committee dedicated to addressing the threat from China would be an especially audacious move.
Chen first contacted the staff member in Dec from a Gmail account with a display name of Kris Chen, though he signed his emails with the spelling Chris. He described himself as an employee of NimbusHub Strategic Consulting, a Hong Kong-based firm with a spartan website that promises “to provide clients with the tools and knowledge necessary to navigate an increasingly complex global landscape.” The website contains filler text in Latin, which often auto-populates within unfinished sections of websites.
Other clues point to NimbusHub as a front for China’s spy services. In a Feb report on malicious uses of its AI tools, OpenAI identified ChatGPT users who had used the model to generate email drafts purporting to be from employees of NimbusHub. The emails addressed to state officials in the US and policy analysts working in business and finance came from personas who, like Chen, sought to offer paid consulting gigs for information.
The small number of users, whom OpenAI later banned, told ChatGPT to flatter their targets and sent their prompts in simplified Chinese characters, the standard writing system in China, rather than traditional Chinese characters, which Hong Kong continues to use.
“They requested the email drafts to be concise, clear, and professional, with subject lines that created urgency and used subtle psychological cues.”
The profile picture for Chen’s
nytimes.com/2026/05/09/us/po…