380: James Gaylord - China's Family of Spies (Part 2) Chasing Chi
FBI Case File Review
Jerri Williams
4.7 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 11 December 2025
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In part two of this two-part episode, retired agent Jim Gaylord reviews the resolution of his investigation and the prosecution of Chi Mak and family members 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 investigate whether Chi was stealing U.S. Navy secrets from his employer. This case highlights the bureaucratic friction that jeopardized efforts to break the string of espionage failures. Check out episode show notes, photos, and related articles: https://jerriwilliams.com/380-james-gaylord-chasing-chi-chinas-family-of-spies-part-2/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We've got him convicted. |
| 0:01.3 | A month later, we've got the trial for the other four. |
| 0:03.7 | We're all prepared. |
| 0:04.7 | We're all ready. |
| 0:05.7 | And the executives, the United States Attorney's Office, have decided they're going to |
| 0:09.3 | plead out everything else. |
| 0:11.0 | Without asking the Bureau, refusing to hear our opinions on any of it, they settled. |
| 0:15.1 | And the reason they settled is they were afraid of losing, even though we won with a big |
| 0:18.8 | guy. |
| 0:19.8 | One of the reasons I wrote the book is the frustration with the prosecutor's office. |
| 0:23.1 | There's a real imbalance of power. |
| 0:25.0 | The FBI does 95% or more percent of the work, presents it, and then with so many espionage |
| 0:30.4 | cases before and since, they settle it. |
| 0:33.7 | That is frustrating to me. |
| 0:38.9 | Welcome to me. Welcome to episode 380 of FBI case file review with Jerry Williams. |
| 0:48.2 | I'm a retired agent on a mission to show you who the FBI is and what the FBI does through my books, my blog, |
| 0:55.7 | and my podcast case reviews with former colleagues. Today, we get to speak once again to |
| 1:02.5 | retired agent Jim Gaylord, who served in the FBI for 31 years. In part two of this two-part episode, he reviews the resolution of his investigation |
| 1:15.8 | and the prosecution of Chi-Mack and family members who stole U.S. military secrets for the People's Republic |
| 1:23.9 | of China. Jim is the author of Chasing Chi, the FBI's groundbreaking pursuit of China's |
| 1:31.9 | most prolific spy family. It's a fascinating spy thriller detailing Chi Max's betrayal. I'm not going to |
| 1:39.0 | read Jim's entire bio again, but I want to remind you that he worked this case and career in the Santa |
... |
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