Potential Saboteurs, Spies, and Hackers from China Getting Busted Around the World
Possible Chinese assets have been busted in San Diego, Italy, and the Ukraine.
With President Donald Trump in office, and a firm “America First” policy in place, the world seems quite a bit different.
Once noticeable change is that national security seems more robust here and around the world. Last month, for instance, I reported that three Chinese scientists were accused of smuggling restricted biological materials into the the country for use at the University of Michigan.
Two will remain in custody after waiving their right to a hearing Friday in federal court. The third remains in China, after he was sent back during his recent attempt to return the U.S. when red plant material was discovered in his backpack.
These are the only recent detainments of potential saboteurs, spies, and hackers from China in the U.S. But a fair number of them have been nabbed in various international locations.
To begin with, in my hometown of San Diego, two Chinese men were arrested, accused of spying on U.S. military facilities and attempting to recruit American service members for China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS).
The suspects, Yuance Chen, 38, and Liren “Ryan” Lai, 39, made their initial appearances in federal court Monday in Portland, Oregon, and Houston, Texas, on charges issued out of the Northern District of California for purportedly committing espionage offenses on behalf of the government of China, the federal investigative service reported.
At least one search warrant in the case was served in San Diego, according to comments about the investigation posted on social media by FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino. Others were issued in San Francisco, Houston and Portland, Bongino wrote. Details on those enforcement actions were not released.
… [A]ctivities allegedly included facilitating a “dead drop” cash payment for information about U.S. national security, gathering intelligence about U.S. Navy personnel and bases and assisting with efforts to recruit other people from within the American military as potential MSS assets, according to the FBI.
Italian officials, at the request of the U.S., have arrested Xu Zewei, a Chinese national who may be one of their state-sponsored hackers. Xu is accused of stealing COVID research from American universities and participating in the mass hacking of Microsoft Exchange servers between 2020 and 2021.
The 33-year-old IT manager at a Shanghai company appeared on Tuesday before an appeals court in Milan, which will decide whether to send him to the United States. The man was arrested last week after he arrived at Milan’s Malpensa airport for a holiday in Italy with his wife.
U.S. authorities allege that he was part of a team of hackers who in 2020 hacked and otherwise targeted U.S.-based universities, immunologist, and virologists conducting research into COVID‑19 vaccines, treatment, and testing. The U.S. Justice Department says a research university located in the Southern District of Texas was also targeted.
The DOJ also says that in 2021, he was part of a cyber-espionage group known as Hafnium, which has alleged ties to the Chinese government and which “exploited zero-day vulnerabilities in U.S. systems to steal additional research.”
…The charges listed on the arrest warrant were wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and unauthorized access to protected computers.
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, authorities have detained two people from China suspected of attempting to steal military technology related to the country’s Neptune missile system.
Counterintelligence officials arrested a 24-year-old former student in Kyiv after they provided him with “technical documentation” related to Neptune production, it said in a statement.
They later detained his father, who had aimed to smuggle out the documents to the Chinese special services, the SBU said. The father had been living in China but visited Ukraine to “personally coordinate” his son’s work, the agency said.
A Ukrainian official told Reuters the two men were the first Chinese people arrested for spying since Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion.
It looks like China can say “goodbye” to the days of spying and hacking without getting caught or facing repercussions.
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Comments
wefuku..chinese spokesthey stated:
we are not spies against americans
just america
We should have adopted unrestricted warfare 30-40 years ago.
We could bring China to its knees within 90 days if we told the major department stores and big box retailers that we will no longer except Chinese merchandise. Did they have to find something else.
The number of “American” companies making their goods in China now would find other places to make it so fast your head would swim.
then we’d have to say no more unions in the usa
and thats not going to happen
Seems like unions would be prime targets for organized crime lawsuits. What’s the difference? They weasel their way into companies, strongarm them into paying them and hiring only their employees, and shut things down and block people from going inside if the boss doesn’t get a big enough cut. Unions are the mafia but legit. If you let a union into your company, you don’t run it any more, the union does.
GM could have broken the UAW by going into full bankruptcy and restructuring.
One of the best union busting I ever saw was when Toyota reopened the Fremont California GM plant as part of the NUMMI enterprise. All hiring was done from new people. No former plant workers were taken until they just had to to fill out the roster. The union men were told they had NO seniority whatsoever. Period.
They still ended up having problems with labor, sabotage, and other things. When Pontiac ceased to exist in 2010, that meant that a lot of cars being produced in Fremont were no longer going to be produced. Toyota took this as an opportunity to close down that Fremont plant and move everything to Texas. I think it’s a Tesla plant now.
What do unions have to do with Chinese goods vs say goods from India?
At the moment they could respond by cutting off pharmaceuticals to the US. We are in a no win situation at the moment, Need to fix that. Need to restrict chinese visas especially student and tech worker visits and stop outsourcing development china. We need to drastically increase penalties for espionage to they approach something like china would assign. We need get twits like Swalwell who are stupid enough to fall for chinese honey traps out of congress. We need make Taiwan a fortress because if we don’t and china captures it we are cooked because of Taiwan;s semiconductor dominance.
“Last month, for instance, I reported that three Chinese scientists were accused of smuggling restricted biological materials”
Any rational person knows that for every one they catch there are at least three getaways.