A former U.S. fighter pilot known by the call sign “Runner” has been arrested for allegedly conspiring to train Chinese military pilots, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said.
Former U.S. Air Force officer and pilot, 65-year-old Gerald Eddie Brown, Jr., was arrested on Wednesday in Jeffersonville, Indiana on the charge of conspiring to provide defense services to Chinese military pilots without authorization, in violation of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), the agency said. The criminal complaint alleges that since at least August 2023, Brown conspired with foreign nationals and people in the U.S. to provide combat aircraft training to pilots in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF).
“Gerald Brown, a former F-35 Lightning II instructor pilot with decades of experience flying U.S. military aircraft, allegedly betrayed his country by training Chinese pilots to fight against those he swore to protect,” Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division said in a statement.
“The Chinese government continues to exploit the expertise of current and former members of the U.S. armed forces to modernize China’s military capabilities,” Rozhavsky continued. “This arrest serves as a warning that the FBI and our partners will stop at nothing to hold accountable anyone who collaborates with our adversaries to harm our service members and jeopardize our national security.”
Brown served for 24 years in the U.S. Air Force and left active duty with the rank of Major in 1996. During his long military career, he “commanded sensitive units with responsibility for nuclear weapons delivery systems, led combat missions, and served as a fighter pilot instructor and simulator instructor on a variety of fighter and attack aircraft, including the F-4 “Phantom II,” F-15 “Eagle,” F-16 “Fighting Falcon,” and the A-10 “Thunderbolt II” (Warthog),” according to the DOJ.
After his military service, Brown served as a commercial cargo pilot, then as a contract simulator instructor for two U.S. defense contractors training U.S. military pilots how to fly the A-10 and the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, the agency said.
The complaint alleges that Brown began arranging the terms of his contract to train Chinese military pilots around August 2023 with the help of Chinese national Stephen Su Bin. Su Bin notably pled guilty in 2016 to conspiring to hack into the computer networks of major U.S. defense contractors to steal “sensitive military and export-controlled data” for China, the DOJ pointed out. Su Bin was sentenced to four years behind bars.
The DOJ further detailed:
Throughout these communications, Brown consistently stated his intent to train PRC military pilots in combat aircraft operations. In the resumé he prepared for his application, Brown wrote his “objective” as “Instructor Fighter Pilot.” A co-conspirator told Brown that he hoped Brown would be assigned to “my base, but otherwise you’ll go where is the local equivalent as the [U.S. Air Force] Weapon School.” Later, he stated to a co-conspirator that, upon his arrival in China, “Now…. I have the chance to fly and instruct fighter pilots again!”
The DOJ said Brown also submitted to three hours of questioning about the U.S. Air Force on his first day in communist China, and then presented a brief on himself for the PLAAF on his second day. Brown was in China for several years and returned to the U.S. earlier this month, according to the department.
“Providing U.S. military training to our adversaries represents a significant threat to national security,” said Lee M. Russ, Executive Director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations Office of Special Projects. “AFOSI remains committed to countering the threat posed by those who violate the trust placed in them and endanger our service members.”
The DOJ said charges against Brown are similar to the charges filed against former U.S. Marine Corps pilot Daniel Edmund Duggan in 2017. Duggan, who was arrested in Australia in 2022 and is currently awaiting extradition to the U.S., is alleged to have trained Chinese military pilots “on the tactics, techniques, and procedures associated with takeoff from and landing on an aircraft carrier,” the agency said.
The U.S., along with Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand, published a bulletin in 2024 warning that communist China is targeting former military personnel from NATO nations to bolster its military capabilities.
The DOJ pointed to a Feb. 2025 statement from Gen. James B. Hecker, the then-commander of NATO Allied Air Command and U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa: “Once you fly on our team, even after you hang up your uniform, you have a responsibility to protect our tactics, techniques, and procedures.”
Brown was expected to have his initial appearance before a Magistrate Judge in the Southern District of Indiana on Thursday, the DOJ said.
RELATED: TOP SECRET: Thousands of Chinese Pilots Are Trained Every Year in California and Arizona, Strengthening the CCP’s Military Power
Besides former U.S. military pilots being caught allegedly training pilots in China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also sends its pilots to the U.S. for training with “virtually no oversight” before returning and serving in their own country’s military, New York Times bestselling author and Breitbart News Senior Contributor Peter Schweizer details in his new book The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon.
“The People’s Republic of China has a pilot problem,” the investigative journalist writes in The Invisible Coup. “Beijing needs five thousand pilot cadets every year to meet the demand for both military and civilian pilots. Because the Chinese military tightly controls the country’s airspace, it can domestically produce only about 1,200 pilots a year. So, Beijing quietly erected a system to train three thousand of them a year in the United States.”
“Across the U.S., at least sixteen flight schools, operating out of taxpayer-funded airports, are training Chinese cadets — sometimes without disclosing their foreign military ties,” he continues. “They do so by sending future military pilots to the United States posing as civilians to learn how to fly.”
This also applies to Chinese helicopter pilots, who receive American training by the thousands after entering the country on student visas with “minimal scrutiny,” Schweizer writes.
“How this happened is a testament to Chinese ingenuity in manipulating our immigration system for subversive purposes and using our openness and generosity against us. It is also a tribute to American innocence, or at worst, ignorance.”
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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