FBI Director Kash Patel has opened joint law enforcement channels with Beijing and Moscow to target fentanyl, cyber fraud, and child exploitation, a move already producing arrests and seizures but drawing sharp warnings from former agents about counterintelligence risk.
Patel told Reuters in an exclusive interview that the FBI has established four formal working groups with China's Ministry of Public Security covering cyber fraud, violent crimes against children, counternarcotics, and a fugitive task force. Chinese MPS officers now visit FBI facilities in the United States every month, and FBI agents travel to China the following month, a pace of cooperation Patel described as unprecedented.
The partnerships have already yielded concrete results. A joint FBI-China-Dubai police operation called Sand Dollar raided a cyber scam center in Dubai in May, producing 300 arrests, $300 million in seized assets, and the liberation of thousands of trafficked workers. In June, the FBI's field office in Omaha, Nebraska, worked alongside Chinese law enforcement to dismantle a multinational child sexual abuse materials network, arresting 16 suspects. And an internal FBI memo viewed by Reuters credited cooperation with China's MPS for the arrests of nine people tied to Chinese pharmaceutical companies, the shutdown of two chemical production facilities and three associated websites, and the seizure of fentanyl precursor chemicals "likely otherwise destined for the United States."
Patel met with Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong and Vice Minister Xu Datong during a trip to Beijing in late July, one of two visits he has made to China since President Trump's May 2025 trip, which Patel said launched the current relationship. Chinese state media described the meetings as deepening "practical cooperation." At least one suspect inside China accused of "serious violent crimes" has been repatriated to the United States as part of the arrangement.
Patel framed the work as filling a lane that traditional intelligence and military agencies cannot.
"Five Eyes will always be our most important intelligence relationship. No one is trying to replace that. Unlike military and traditional intelligence agencies, we have a unique lane to drive this dynamic change with law enforcement, which is an apolitical mission."
That framing matters. The Five Eyes intelligence partnership, linking the United States with Canada, Australia, Britain, and New Zealand, remains the bedrock of American intelligence sharing. Patel went out of his way to reassure allies that the new channels with Beijing and Moscow sit alongside that alliance, not in place of it.
The FBI director also disclosed that behind-the-scenes law enforcement collaboration with Russia has been underway for 15 months, targeting violent criminal networks. A trip to Russia is tentatively planned for October. The Kremlin and the Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
Patel's willingness to engage adversaries on law enforcement while maintaining strategic competition is consistent with the broader approach the FBI has pursued under his leadership, which has prioritized measurable results over institutional posturing.
Not everyone sees the partnerships as a net win. Jeff Crocker, a former FBI supervisory agent who retired in 2024, offered a blunt assessment.
"China and Russia are our enemies, period. They are actively trying to harm our country physically, economically and militarily."
Crocker said Chinese and Russian agents would treat any access to U.S. government facilities as an opportunity to infiltrate them. "So this is great cover for them," he added.
Patel pushed back on that concern directly. He said counterintelligence operations and countermeasures, including electronic and physical surveillance, are deployed whenever foreign visitors enter FBI facilities. Three former FBI employees confirmed to Reuters that such protocols exist.
"We know exactly who is coming here, and we vet them."
The counterintelligence question is legitimate and worth watching. But Patel's argument rests on a practical calculation: the crimes these working groups target, fentanyl trafficking, child exploitation, cyber fraud, do not respect borders, and the countries manufacturing the poison or harboring the predators are often the same ones the United States needs cooperation from to stop it. That tension is not new. What is new is an FBI director willing to walk into it openly.
The FBI's recent institutional controversies under prior leadership make Patel's willingness to pursue unconventional partnerships all the more notable. An agency that spent years mired in political scandals is now producing operational results abroad.
Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, offered a more cautious read on the fentanyl dimension. She noted that fentanyl overdoses have been declining rapidly in the United States since the winter of 2022, a trend that predates the current FBI-China cooperation. She suggested some of the decline may reflect a grim reality rather than enforcement success.
"It could be that the people who were already vulnerable had already died."
Felbab-Brown acknowledged the cooperation has value but said its precise impact is difficult to isolate. "I think that the cooperation is useful, should be fostered, and that it contributed to some extent," she said. "But how much is really hard to know, and there are a lot of complexities to it."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking during a visit to the Philippines last month, offered a similarly measured take on China's cooperation on fentanyl precursors. "I think we've made some progress on that front, but not entirely where we need to be," Rubio said.
That candor from Rubio is worth noting. The administration is not claiming the problem is solved. It is claiming the channel is open and producing results, and that the alternative, which is no channel at all, was worse.
The backdrop to these partnerships is important. Chinese authorities ended law enforcement cooperation with the United States after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022, part of a broader freeze driven by political disagreements. For years afterward, the FBI had no working relationship with China's Ministry of Public Security on transnational crime.
Patel's approach reversed that. He described the daily communication now underway between the FBI and Chinese counterparts as something that "has also never happened before." The monthly personnel exchanges, Chinese officers visiting U.S. facilities, FBI agents traveling to China, represent a rhythm of engagement that goes well beyond a diplomatic handshake.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington responded to questions about the joint operations with a general statement: "We have always believed that dialogue and negotiation are the right way forward, and that military means offer no solution." The statement did not specifically address the law enforcement working groups.
Patel himself acknowledged the risks plainly, calling both the Chinese and Russian relationships "new and dynamic" while noting that the FBI remains "extremely mindful of their adversarial approach on many matters."
"They are not going to stop, but if we can go and have wins for America, then we must engage."
The internal FBI memo viewed by Reuters did not specify where all the arrests and seizures tied to the pharmaceutical company operations occurred, a gap that leaves open questions about how much of the enforcement action happened on Chinese soil versus elsewhere. The memo's language crediting the MPS cooperation suggests at least some of the operational work took place inside China, but the details remain unclear.
Patel's public profile has drawn its own complications, but his focus at the FBI has centered on operational outcomes rather than Washington turf battles.
The Russia dimension of Patel's outreach has received less attention but may prove equally significant. Patel said the FBI has been collaborating with Russian law enforcement for 15 months behind the scenes, targeting violent criminal networks. He did not name the specific Russian agencies involved or the specific networks under investigation.
"This stuff doesn't happen overnight. We've been at this for 15 months," Patel said. A trip to Russia, tentatively planned for October, would make the partnership more visible, and more politically charged.
The FBI under Patel's leadership has shown a willingness to push back on criticism and pursue its operational agenda regardless of media skepticism.
Patel seemed aware that the partnerships will draw fire from both sides of the political spectrum, from those who see any engagement with Beijing or Moscow as naive, and from those who worry about counterintelligence exposure.
"The fact that we did it with China, when everyone said, 'Don't do it,' and, 'You can't do it,' shows what we can do with almost anyone."
That confidence will be tested. The October trip to Russia, if it happens, will face scrutiny that the China engagement largely avoided. And the counterintelligence safeguards Patel described, vetting, surveillance, controlled access, will need to hold up not just in theory but under sustained pressure from two of the world's most capable intelligence services.
Three hundred arrests, $300 million seized, trafficked workers freed, child predators taken down, fentanyl supply lines disrupted. Those are the numbers Patel is putting on the table. His critics can argue the risks. But the previous approach, no engagement, no cooperation, no results, was not exactly a triumph of American law enforcement either.
Washington spent years lecturing Beijing and Moscow from a distance while fentanyl poured across the border and child exploitation networks operated across continents. Patel walked in, sat down, and started producing arrests. The establishment can clutch its pearls or take notes.
