At the behest of Chinese intelligence, Shriver unsuccessfully applied for jobs with the US State Department and CIA, meeting with handlers from China more than 20 times.

In a 2010 plea bargain, he pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit unlawful conveyance of national defense information, and served four years in prison at the Federal Correctional Institution in Elkton, Ohio.

After graduating from GVSU in 2004 with a bachelor's in International Relations, Shriver returned to Shanghai to work and to study the Chinese language, in which he eventually became proficient.

[1][8] Soon they told him they were interested in obtaining classified material, and paid him $10,000 to take the United States Foreign Service Exam in Shanghai in 2005, though he failed to pass.

[a][10] Shriver enjoyed China so much that he returned there as an English teacher and then lived in South Korea, where he became the fiancé of Yumi Kim.

"[1] In February 2010, when he was in the final stages of processing for a position with the CIA, he lied in order to conceal his involvement with Chinese intelligence operatives.

[9][12] The CIA and FBI did not disclose how they discovered Shriver had been recruited by the Chinese government, but stated it was not through normal background investigations.

[15] Shriver pleaded guilty in October 2010 to one count of conspiracy to commit unlawful conveyance of national defense information as part of a plea bargain[5][8] which included a full debriefing and polygraph testing.

[17] Between March 2008 and July 2010, 44 individuals were convicted by the United States Department of Justice in 26 cases involving espionage on behalf of China.

[18] According to David Wise, Shriver was the first known case in which China tried to recruit an American to set up as a mole within the CIA, although the method has been attempted by other countries.

[21] After Shriver's arrest, Peimin Ni (Chinese: 倪培民; pinyin: Ní Péimín) and Geling Shang (商戈令; Shāng Gēlìng), professors at Grand Valley State involved in the university's China study abroad program, were searched by US airport security while flying from the US and interviewed by the FBI.

[22] Shriver's experience was dramatized in the short film Game of Pawns, produced by Rocket Media Group,[23] in association with the Counter-Intelligence Unit of the FBI and released online in April 2014.