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Comment by clown_strike | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like possible espionage. Chinese spies spook easily and flee the country long before the FBI gets its shit together.

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Moreso than spying, sounds like a long time US-based researcher suddenly had a reason to commit immediate espionage.

Believe everyone can put together the type of events that cause sudden behavior changes like that. (Hint: money offers or family threats)

It's all the same to me but that's often how it goes. Everyone is a sleeper agent until compelled to act by whatever means. Israelis do the same thing under the sayanim program (appeal to loyalty). Malware agents are staged until called upon using the same strategy.

I don't know what motivated this guy's disappearance but you don't get quietly fired, scrubbed from public association and have the FBI raid your apartment when you're a victim of abduction. We know some sort of federal crime took place to justify the raid so my guess is the guy is not an abductee but a fugitive.

Here's one possible way it went down: His wife kills him and hides the body. The university then fires him because he doesn't show up and won't respond to any messages. Eventually the university gets suspicious and calls the FBI. The FBI raids the apartment because they think it might be a crime scene. The reason its the FBI and not local cops is because the university mentioned that he was Chinese and working on sensitive research so the feds step in, due to them perceiving some possible espionage angle.

I am not saying that definitely happened, but it's a narrative which more or less fits the facts.

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