Overview
- The FBI disclosed Wednesday that under Director Kash Patel it has opened operational partnerships with Chinese and Russian law enforcement to fight transnational crime.
- Those partnerships are organized into four working groups focused on cyber fraud, crimes against children, counternarcotics, and a fugitive task force and include routine personnel exchanges and joint case work.
- The bureau cites concrete results from cooperation with China, including May’s Operation Sand Dollar that the FBI says helped seize about $300 million and led to roughly 300 arrests and thousands of rescued trafficked workers.
- An internal FBI memo credited the China ties with arrests of nine people, the shutdown of two chemical production sites and seizures of fentanyl precursor chemicals, while a June operation with Chinese officers and the FBI’s Omaha office produced 16 arrests in a child‑abuse network.
- Counterintelligence experts and some former FBI officials warn that letting officials from authoritarian states visit U.S. facilities creates espionage risks, and Patel’s tentative October trip to Russia has already drawn congressional scrutiny that could shape oversight and future cooperation.