DOZENS of scientists have been poached from a US nuclear lab to develop Chinese hypersonic missiles to blitz the West.
They’ve gone on to help Beijing build world-ending warheads, drones, camouflage and quiet submarines.
According to a new report, 162 Chinese scientists who worked on top secret research at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of the atom bomb, returned to China as late as last year to work on shady missile programmes.
It comes as Brit fighter pilots are said to be offered £240,000 salaries by China to train enemy top guns.
At least 30 former UK Armed Forces pilots are already betraying Britain by working with troops in China to help ramp up the country’s military capabilities and tactics, intelligence sources warned.
The damning study by Strider Technologies, a private intelligence firm, said Chinese scientists who worked at the top US nuclear lab between 1987 and 2021 returned to China to work on “domestic research and development programmes” including “dual-use” tech that could be on civilians.
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They were wooed in with $1m salary offers and research grants by the Chinese Communist Party.
Some 80 per cent who returned were recruited into Beijing’s development courses, including the high-profile Thousand Talents Programme (TTP).
Los Alamos is in charge of designing the US’ nuclear warheads and ensuring the safety of its nuclear stockpile.
According to the report, one scientist was handed $20m in grants by the US government to develop “deep-penetrating warheads” and given a Top Secret security clearance only to return to China and joined the TTP.
Another researcher returned and would go on to file a patent for an “ultra-thick penetrating warhead”.
Report author Greg Levesque told the Telegraph: “Nothing about it is ad hoc. What the Chinese government has set up is a system.
“That system is built to incentivise folks to make those decisions to go to the US, go to the UK, study, learn, and then there are financial and reputational benefits to actually going back [to China].
“They have a name for the system, it’s the talent superpower strategy. That system includes not only recruiting talent, but also sending emerging talent overseas.”
Mr Levesque said he was “blown away” by how many Los Alamos scientists had returned to China.
“It was not a couple, it was the vast majority,” he said.
“What we have on our hands here is a nation state that is literally targeting national labs, and they’re sending people and recruiting people from those institutions. That’s a national security threat.
“If this is happening at Los Alamos what’s happening at university research institutions, what’s happening at facilities of our allies?”
According to the report, another seven researcher went on to work for the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics, which develops China’s nuclear weapons programme.
Another received $1.8m from the US military while working for the Chinese Army at the same time.
In 2019, the US Department of Energy, which oversees Los Alamos, banned its staff from engaging with China’s talent recruitment programme.
A US Senate homeland security report accused China of spending the last 20 years “recruiting US-based researchers, scientists, and experts in the public and private sector to provide China with knowledge and intellectual capital in exchange for monetary gain and other benefits”.
According to the FBI, China’s Thousand Talents recruitment programme “incentivise members to steal foreign technologies”.
Mr Levesque said China has been able to steal decades of US research worth billions and “leapfrog” Washington DC in the arms race.
He said Beijing could be offering returning scientists as much as $1m.
He said: “You can get that just by being inducted into the talent programme, then you get a lab set up, then your lab will get funding.
“What we’re seeing across the board is that this whole life cycle isn’t really being evaluated or monitored in any kind of way.
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“So a lot of those people still have contacts back to Los Alamos, their colleagues, and creating those additional channels for information flow that creates a lot of national security risks.”
A US Department of Energy statement said: “In response to growing research security threats, the Department of Energy has taken significant steps in recent years, including the adoption of rigorous vetting, counterintelligence reviews, and restrictions on participation in foreign talent programmes.”
