Kash Patel’s New Playbook: Why the FBI Is Partnering With China and Russia
In a significant departure from longstanding U.S. security orthodoxy, FBI Director Kash Patel has forged new law-enforcement partnerships with China and Russia, two of America’s primary geopolitical rivals. Over the past 15 months, the bureau has established structured cooperation focused on transnational crimes that cross borders and claim American victims: fentanyl trafficking, cyber fraud, child sexual exploitation, and the pursuit of fugitives. Patel frames the effort as a pragmatic necessity rather than a strategic realignment. “They are both new and dynamic relationships, and we are extremely mindful of their adversarial approach on many matters,” he told Reuters in exclusive interviews. “They are not going to stop, but if we can go and have wins for America, then we must engage.”
The China relationship took shape after President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing in May 2025. Patel has since made two trips of his own, returning from the most recent in late July 2026 after meeting Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong and other senior Chinese officials. Cooperation now operates through four dedicated working groups covering cyber fraud, violent crimes against children, counternarcotics, and a fugitive task force. Personnel exchanges occur on a monthly rhythm: Chinese Ministry of Public Security officers visit multiple FBI facilities in the United States, and the following month FBI personnel travel to China. Officials on both sides communicate nearly every day—an intensity Patel described as unprecedented. “Every month, they send their working-level MPS officers here, and the following month we go there,” he said. “They are speaking with us daily, which has also never happened before.”
A quieter track has developed with Russia. Patel said the FBI has worked for more than a year with Russian authorities on cases involving violent criminal networks. A trip by the director to Russia is tentatively scheduled for October. Unlike the more formalized Chinese structure, the Russian collaboration remains lower-profile, but Patel presented both as examples of what he calls engagement with “non-traditional partners.”
Concrete results have already emerged. In May 2026, Operation Sand Dollar brought together the FBI, China’s Ministry of Public Security, and Dubai police against a major cyber scam center. The raid produced approximately 300 arrests, the seizure of roughly $300 million, and the liberation of thousands of trafficked workers. Internal FBI assessments credit Chinese cooperation with helping shut down two chemical production facilities and three associated websites linked to fentanyl precursor chemicals destined for the United States; nine people were arrested in related actions. In June 2026, Chinese law enforcement assisted the FBI’s Omaha field office in dismantling a multinational child sexual abuse materials network, resulting in 16 arrests. Recent repatriations of fugitives—despite the absence of an extradition treaty—have also occurred in both directions, including the return of a U.S. suspect wanted for serious violent crimes and the handover of a Chinese national accused of killing citizens overseas.
Patel insists the partnerships remain tightly scoped. They do not involve the sharing of sensitive strategic intelligence reserved for traditional allies. “Five Eyes will always be our most important intelligence relationship,” he said, referring to the longstanding alliance with Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. “No one is trying to replace that.” He has emphasized the apolitical character of law enforcement work as a unique channel for progress. “Unlike military and traditional intelligence agencies, we have a unique lane to drive this dynamic change with law enforcement, which is an apolitical mission.”
The approach has drawn sharp criticism. Former FBI supervisory agent Jeff Crocker, who retired in 2024, stated flatly: “China and Russia are our enemies, period. They are actively trying to harm our country physically, economically and militarily.” Critics warn that regular access by Chinese Ministry of Public Security officers to FBI facilities creates openings for counterintelligence collection. The ministry is widely viewed as an instrument of political control inside China, responsible for mass surveillance and suppression of dissent. Allowing its personnel into American law-enforcement environments, they argue, risks more than operational inconvenience. Patel has responded that risks are managed through rigorous vetting and surveillance. “We know exactly who is coming here, and we vet them.” Three former FBI employees confirmed that visitors from adversarial countries are subject to electronic and physical monitoring.
The broader context includes earlier friction. Prior U.S. efforts to engage China on fentanyl precursors faced political headwinds, and cooperation had previously stalled over issues such as high-level visits to Taiwan. Under the current administration, Trump’s personal diplomacy with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin has created political space for these limited law-enforcement channels. Patel has suggested the China model could be applied more widely. “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.”
Whether the gains outweigh the risks remains contested. Fentanyl overdose deaths in the United States have declined since late 2022, though analysts caution that multiple factors—including the wider availability of naloxone—are at play. Brookings Institution scholar Vanda Felbab-Brown noted that cooperation with China is useful and has contributed to some extent, but the precise impact is difficult to isolate. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has described progress on precursors as “a work in progress.”
What is clear is that the FBI under Patel has tested a new operational doctrine: separating the pursuit of specific criminal networks from the larger strategic competition with authoritarian powers. Cyber scam centers, global child-exploitation rings, and synthetic-drug supply chains do not observe geopolitical boundaries. By creating structured, reciprocal, and highly compartmentalized channels with Beijing and Moscow, the bureau is attempting to score measurable wins against those networks while maintaining that the adversarial character of the broader relationship remains unchanged.
The experiment is still young. Monthly exchanges continue, daily communications persist, and a Russia visit looms. Success will ultimately be measured not only in arrests and seizures but in whether the safeguards hold and whether traditional allies retain confidence that America’s most sensitive law-enforcement relationships remain intact. For now, Patel’s playbook rests on a simple calculation: when criminals operate without regard for borders or rivalries, law enforcement may sometimes need to do the same.
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