The Federal Bureau of Investigation has established an unprecedented level of operational cooperation with law enforcement agencies in China and Russia, with FBI Director Kash Patel saying the partnerships are delivering tangible results against transnational crime despite longstanding concerns over working with two countries regarded as major strategic adversaries of the United States.
In exclusive interviews, Patel said the new relationships have been deliberately limited to specific categories of international crime, including fentanyl trafficking, cyber fraud, child sexual exploitation networks and fugitive investigations. The cooperation has included personnel exchanges, intelligence sharing, joint investigations and coordinated law enforcement operations that would have been considered highly unlikely in previous years.
According to FBI officials, Chinese law enforcement officers have travelled to the United States to work alongside FBI personnel, while FBI agents have made reciprocal visits to China to collaborate on investigations. Patel returned from Beijing in late July following meetings with Chinese officials, while a similar visit to Russia has been tentatively scheduled for October.
The arrangements, internally referred to as “working groups”, represent a significant departure from previous US policy, under which China and Russia were primarily viewed as sources of espionage and transnational criminal threats rather than partners in combating them. Patel acknowledged the risks associated with the cooperation but argued they could be managed without compromising US national security.
“They are both new and dynamic relationships, and we are extremely mindful of their adversarial approach on many matters,” Patel said. “They are not going to stop, but if we can go and have wins for America, then we must engage.”
The current framework began after President Donald Trump’s visit to China in May 2025 and was followed by two visits by Patel to Beijing. According to the FBI Director, cooperation has since expanded into four specialised working groups covering cyber fraud, violent crimes against children, counternarcotics and fugitive investigations.
Patel said the exchanges involve regular contact between investigators. “Every month, they send their working-level MPS officers here, and the following month we go there,” he said, referring to China’s Ministry of Public Security. “They are speaking with us daily, which has also never happened before.”
The FBI says the information exchanged is narrowly focused on the agreed categories of transnational crime and does not extend to broader intelligence matters. Patel stressed that these partnerships are not intended to replace established intelligence alliances such as the Five Eyes partnership with the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
“Five Eyes will always be our most important intelligence relationship. No one is trying to replace that,” Patel said. He argued that law enforcement agencies occupy a different operational space from military and intelligence organisations, enabling cooperation on criminal investigations while remaining distinct from wider geopolitical disputes.
During his latest visit to China, Patel met Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong and Vice Minister Xu Datong. Chinese state media described the discussions as aimed at strengthening “practical cooperation” across a range of criminal investigations.
The expanded collaboration has already produced several joint operations, according to the FBI. In May, the FBI, China’s Ministry of Public Security and Dubai Police jointly conducted “Operation Sand Dollar”, targeting a cyber scam centre in Dubai. The operation resulted in 300 arrests, the seizure of US$300 million and the release of thousands of trafficked workers, the bureau said. Chinese state media also reported that a suspect accused of “serious violent crimes” inside China had been repatriated to the United States.
An internal FBI memorandum also credited cooperation with Chinese authorities in operations targeting Chinese pharmaceutical companies this year. According to the document, nine people were arrested, two chemical production facilities and three associated websites were shut down, and fentanyl precursor chemicals “likely otherwise destined for the United States” were seized. The memorandum did not specify where those actions took place.
The bureau also said Chinese law enforcement worked with the FBI’s Omaha field office in Nebraska during June to dismantle a multinational child sexual abuse material network, leading to the arrests of 16 suspects.
The initiative has nevertheless generated concern among former intelligence and law enforcement officials. Jeff Crocker, a former FBI supervisory agent who retired in 2024, argued that cooperation with China and Russia presents significant security risks because both countries continue to pursue intelligence operations against the United States.
“China and Russia are our enemies, period,” Crocker said. He warned that allowing officials from either country access to FBI facilities could provide opportunities to gather intelligence or infiltrate US institutions. “So this is great cover for them,” he added.
Patel rejected those concerns, saying robust counterintelligence measures accompany every foreign visit to FBI facilities. According to Patel, all visitors undergo extensive vetting and remain subject to electronic and physical surveillance where appropriate. Three former FBI employees confirmed that such precautions are routinely employed, particularly for visitors from countries regarded as significant intelligence threats.
“We know exactly who is coming here, and we vet them,” Patel said.
The Kremlin and the Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Patel also revealed that months of behind-the-scenes cooperation with Russian law enforcement have focused on violent criminal networks, describing the collaboration as the product of more than a year of sustained engagement. “This stuff doesn’t happen overnight,” he said. “We’ve been at this for 15 months.”
The growing cooperation follows years of strained relations between Washington and Beijing, particularly over China’s role in the supply of precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of fentanyl. Political tensions, including then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 visit to Taiwan, had previously halted bilateral cooperation on the issue.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a measured assessment during a visit to the Philippines last month, describing cooperation with China on fentanyl precursor chemicals as “a work in progress”. Rubio said progress had been made but added that further improvements were still required.
Outside experts offered cautious support for targeted cooperation. Vanda Felbab-Brown, Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, said fentanyl overdose deaths in the United States have fallen significantly since the winter of 2022, likely due to a combination of factors that may include cooperation with China and wider access to the overdose-reversal drug Naloxone.
“I think that the cooperation is useful, should be fostered, and that it contributed to some extent,” Felbab-Brown said, while adding that it remained difficult to determine precisely how much impact the cooperation had made given the complexity of the opioid crisis.
Patel said the model developed with China and Russia could eventually be adapted for other countries where cooperation against transnational crime serves mutual interests.
“The fact that we did it with China,” he said, “when everyone said, ‘Don’t do it,’ and, ‘You can’t do it,’ shows what we can do with almost anyone.”
