Latest news with #LirenLai
Malay Mail
a day ago
- Malay Mail
US arrests two Chinese nationals over alleged plot to infiltrate Navy, pass secrets to Beijing
WASHINGTON, July 2 — Two Chinese nationals have been arrested for espionage and for allegedly seeking to recruit members of the US Navy to serve as intelligence assets, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Yuance Chen, 38, and Liren Lai, 39, face charges of acting as agents of the Chinese government and a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted, the department said. Chen, a resident of Happy Valley, Oregon, and Lai, who arrived in Houston, Texas, in April on a tourist visa, were arrested by the FBI on Friday, it said. According to a criminal complaint, Chen and Lai carried out a number of intelligence activities in the United States on behalf of China's Ministry of State Security. The activities included paying cash for national security information and seeking to recruit members of the US Navy as potential assets of the Ministry of State Security. 'This case underscores the Chinese government's sustained and aggressive effort to infiltrate our military and undermine our national security from within,' Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. According to the criminal complaint, Lai recruited Chen, a legal permanent resident of the United States, to work for the Ministry of State Security in 2021. — AFP
Reuters
a day ago
- Politics
- Reuters
US charges two Chinese nationals with attempting to recruit US service members
July 1 (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors have charged two Chinese nationals with acting as agents of China's security service, accusing them of gathering intelligence about U.S. Navy bases and trying to identify Navy members willing to spy for Beijing, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. The suspects facilitated a "dead-drop payment" of at least $10,000 in a locker at a recreational facility in Northern California in 2022 in exchange for U.S. national security information that had already been passed to Chinese intelligence, the Justice Department said. Yuance Chen, 38, a legal permanent resident living in Happy Valley, Oregon, and Liren 'Ryan' Lai, 39, who arrived in Houston from China in April on a tourist visa, were arrested on Friday, the department said in a statement. The pair worked on behalf of China's Ministry of State Security and made their initial appearances in federal court in Houston and Portland, Oregon on Monday, it said. The Justice Department gave no details on who provided the national security information or the military members targeted for recruitment. After the 2022 incident, the pair "continued to work on behalf of the MSS, including to help identify potential assets for MSS recruitment within the ranks of the U.S. Navy," the Justice Department said. "The Chinese Communist Party thought they were getting away with their scheme to operate on U.S. soil, utilizing spy craft, like dead drops, to pay their sources," FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement. In a statement to Reuters, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said he was not aware of the specific case but said the allegations were "assumptions and speculations," accusing the U.S. of hypocrisy in its global intelligence operations.
CNA
a day ago
- CNA
US charges two Chinese nationals with attempting to recruit US service members
United States prosecutors have charged two Chinese nationals with acting as agents of China's security service, accusing them of gathering intelligence about US Navy bases and trying to identify Navy members willing to spy for Beijing, the Justice Department said on Tuesday (Jul 1). The suspects facilitated a "dead-drop payment" of at least US$10,000 in a locker at a recreational facility in Northern California in 2022 in exchange for US national security information that had already been passed to Chinese intelligence, the Justice Department said. Yuance Chen, 38, a legal permanent resident living in Happy Valley, Oregon, and Liren 'Ryan' Lai, 39, who arrived in Houston from China in April on a tourist visa, were arrested on Friday, the department said in a statement. The pair worked on behalf of China's Ministry of State Security and made their initial appearances in federal court in Houston and Portland, Oregon on Monday, it said. The Justice Department gave no details on who provided the national security information or the military members targeted for recruitment. After the 2022 incident, the pair "continued to work on behalf of the MSS, including to help identify potential assets for MSS recruitment within the ranks of the US Navy," the Justice Department said. "The Chinese Communist Party thought they were getting away with their scheme to operate on US soil, utilising spy craft, like dead drops, to pay their sources," FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement. In a statement to Reuters, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said he was not aware of the specific case but said the allegations were "assumptions and speculations", accusing the US of hypocrisy in its global intelligence operations.
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Al Jazeera
Two Chinese nationals charged for trying to recruit spies in US military
The United States Department of Justice has charged two Chinese citizens for spying and trying to recruit from within the country's military ranks. According to Tuesday's statement, Yuance Chen, 38, and Liren 'Ryan' Lai, 39, are accused of working on behalf of China's foreign intelligence arm, the Ministry of State Security (MSS). The pair allegedly carried out a range of 'clandestine intelligence taskings', including facilitating payments in exchange for national security information, gathering intelligence on Navy bases and attempting to recruit MSS assets. 'This case underscores the Chinese government's sustained and aggressive effort to infiltrate our military and undermine our national security from within,' said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. According to an affidavit from the FBI, Lai was part of an MSS network 'who could travel more easily' between China and the US 'to facilitate clandestine operations'. Starting around 2021, he began developing Chen, who is a legal permanent resident, into his asset. After ascertaining that Chen knew people in the US military, Lai urged him to travel abroad to discuss his connections in person, even offering to pay for the tickets, according to the affidavit. The men reportedly met with MSS agents, and in 2022, they left a backpack with $10,000 in cash in a California locker as payment to other individuals for intelligence gathering. In the years that followed, the affidavit says that Chen collected information about the Navy and sent it to Lai, while also discussing recruitment efforts directly with the MSS. Some of that information included personal details from Navy employees. In one case, Chen travelled to San Diego, California, to meet with a Navy hire and tour the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier. Photos included in the affidavit show a visitor's badge as well as Chen posing with the employee and their child on top of the aircraft carrier's deck. The FBI says that such interactions are part of China's campaign to extend its military's reach. 'The PRC [People's Republic of China] government seeks blue-water naval capabilities as part of their effort to modernize their navy and establish hegemony in the South China Sea,' the affidavit reads. 'Blue-water capabilities' generally refer to long-distance maritime efforts, as opposed to operations based closer to domestic shores. 'As such, the PRC government tasks and deploys the MSS to surreptitiously target the US Navy and collect intelligence,' the affidavit continues. Both men were charged under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, or FARA, which requires that those working on behalf of another country register with the US government. In recent years, the US government has ramped up its use of the law in its effort to combat alleged Chinese espionage activity. Beijing typically denies such claims and has accused the US of discriminatory tactics. 'These charges reflect the breadth of the efforts by our foreign adversaries to target the United States,' US Attorney Craig H Missakian said in the Justice Department statement. 'We will continue to undertake counterespionage investigations and prosecutions, no matter how complex and sensitive, to disrupt attempts to weaken our national security.'
Asharq Al-Awsat
a day ago
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Justice Department Says 2 Chinese Nationals Charged with Spying Inside the US for Beijing
Two Chinese nationals have been charged with spying inside the United States on behalf of Beijing, including by taking photographs of a naval base, coordinating a cash dead-drop and participating in efforts to recruit members of the military who they thought might be open to working for Chinese intelligence. The case, filed in federal court in San Francisco and unsealed Monday, is the latest Justice Department prosecution to target what officials say are active efforts by the Chinese government to secretly collect intelligence about American military capabilities — a practice laid bare in startling fashion two years ago with China's launching of a surveillance balloon that US officials ultimately shot down over the coast of South Carolina. "This case underscores the Chinese government's sustained and aggressive effort to infiltrate our military and undermine our national security from within," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing the case. "The Justice Department will not stand by while hostile nations embed spies in our country – we will expose foreign operatives, hold their agents to account, and protect the American people from covert threats to our national security." Officials identified the defendants as Yuance Chen, 38, who arrived in the US on a visa in 2015 and later became a lawful permanent resident, and Liren "Ryan" Lai, 39, who prosecutors say lives in China but came to the US sporadically, including this past spring as part of an effort to supervise clandestine espionage operations on behalf of China's Ministry of State Security or MSS. The two were arrested on charges of secretly doing China's bidding without registering as foreign agents with the Justice Department, as required by law. It was not immediately clear if they had lawyers. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday. According to an FBI affidavit filed in connection with the case, investigators believe Lai had been developing Chen to be a Chinese intelligence asset since at least mid-2021. Their activities, the FBI says, included coordinating on a dead-drop of at least $10,000 in cash to another person who was operating at the direction of the MSS. They also participated and arranged surveillance of a Navy recruiting station in California and Navy base in Washington state, including through photographs that Chen is accused of taking and that investigators believe were transmitted to Chinese intelligence. Authorities say Lai and Chen also discussed recruiting Navy employees to work for China, with Chen at one point obtaining names, hometowns and programs of recent recruits. Many listed China as their hometown and investigators believe the information was sent to China, the FBI affidavit says. The affidavit recounts conversations aimed at assessing whether individual Navy employees would make for good recruits for Chinese intelligence. In one instance, the FBI said, Chen sent Lai the name of a Navy employee and wrote: "I found out. His mother is Chinese. His father and mother did not get along and the mother was given custody when he was 8 years old. That is why he uses his mother's last name." The case is one in a series concerning Chinese intelligence-gathering, sometimes related to the US military. In August 2023, for instance, two Navy sailors were charged with providing sensitive military information to China, including details on wartime exercises, naval operations and critical technical material. "Adverse foreign intelligence services like the PRC's Ministry of State Security dedicate years to recruiting individuals and cultivating them as intelligence assets to do their bidding within the United States," Assistant Attorney General John Eisenberg, the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, said in a statement.
