Yuance Chen, 38, is a permanent legal resident of Happy Valley, Ore., and was arraigned on charges in the U.S. District Court of Oregon in Portland and accusing him of acting as an agent of the Chinese government without notifying the U.S. attorney general.
Liren "Ryan" Lai, 39, also is charged with acting as an agent of the Chinese government and was arraigned in the U.S. District Court ofSouthern Texas in Houston. Lai traveled to the United States on a tourist visa in April.
"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 on Tuesday in a news release.
"The Justice Department will not stand by while hostile nations embed spies in our country," Bondi added.
The charges against both defendants were filed in the U.S.District Court of Northern California in San Francisco, and they were arrested on Friday, the Department of Justice. Each is innocent until proven guilty.
Both men are accused of "overseeing and carrying out various clandestine intelligence taskings in the United States on behalf of the [Chinese] government's principal foreign intelligence service, the Ministry of State Security," the DOJ said.
The pair allegedly were "attempting to recruit U.S. military service members on behalf of the People's Republic of China," FBI Director Kash Patel 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," Patel continued.
He said the case was a "complex and coordinated effort" that involved counterintelligence work by FBI agents in San Francisco, Portland, Houston and San Diego and the agency's Counterintelligence Division.
The DOJ accuses Lai of recruiting Chen on behalf of the MSS in 2021 and says the pair met in Guangzhou, China, in January 2022, to devise a dead-drop payment of at least $10,000.
They allegedly worked with individuals in the United States to leave a backpack with the cash inside a day-use locker at a recreational facility in Livermore, Calif., that same month.
The DOJ says Lai and Chen also conspired to obtain a list of personnel from a U.S. Navy recruitment center in San Gabriel, Calif., and a Navy installation in Washington state to identify potential intelligence assets and transmit the information to the MSS in China.
China's MSS also instructed Chen in how to "engage and recruit future sailors and methods for minimizing his risk of exposure," the DOJ alleges.
Chen also is accused of traveling to China in April 2024 and March 2025 to meet with MSS intelligence officers and discuss specific tasks and compensation.
Chen and Lai each could be imprisoned for up to 10 years and fined up to $250,000 if found guilty of the charges against them.
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