The FBI arrested a California woman, Wanying “Heather” Zhang on Monday on charges that she spied on a Taiwanese government official while allegedly serving as an unregistered agent of the People’s Republic of China.
Commenting on Zhang’s arrest, Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division stated:
Wanying Zhang’s arrest for allegedly acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government makes clear how far China’s authoritarian regime will go to advance its goals. However, this case also demonstrates the FBI’s unwavering commitment to defending the sovereignty of our democratic allies and combating all attempts by the Chinese government — and any foreign adversary — to conduct transnational repression within our borders.
The US Department of Justice said in a statement that in August 2025, Zhang and a second individual flew from Orange County, California, to the Pacific Northwest where the Taiwanese government official resides, and that she allegedly notified a PRC official as she was boarding the flights. She was accused of later traveling to the Taiwanese official’s residence.
In an affidavit, Zhang allegedly told PRC officials “Saw him, young male, it’s the young one.” Zhang also sent the PRC license plate numbers for the cars parked outside the residence. The FBI reported on X that officials arrested Zhang at Lose Angeles International Airport (LAX) while she was boarding a flight to China. Zhang is a realtor residing in California.
Under 18 U.S.C. § 951, “whoever, other than a diplomatic or consular officer or attaché, acts in the United States as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the Attorney General if required in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
Previously, in 2020, Singaporean national Jun Wei Yeo pled guilty to acting as a spy within the US to create a fake consulting company targeting US government employees and an Army officer at the direction of Chinese intelligence officials, contrary to 18 U.S.C. § 951. In 2008, former Chinese television executive Tai Wang Mak was sentenced to 10 years in prison for smuggling confidential naval intelligence data into China after stealing computer disks from his employer.
Zhang was arraigned in the US District Court for the Central District of California on Monday afternoon. If convicted, she would face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
