American immigration services arrest Chinese Chinese for smuggling in potential dangerous Germs
U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. announced that Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, citizens of the People’s Republic of China, were charged in the criminal complaint with conspiracy, smuggling goods into the U.S., false statements and Visa fraud.
The FBI arrested Jian in connection with allegations related to Jian’s and Liu’s smuggling Fusarium graminearum — a fungus that scientific literature classifies as a potential agroterrorism weapon — into the U.S.
The noxious fungus causes head blight in wheat and Gibberella ear rot in corn and is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year according to the Crop Protection Network, with yield losses of 50% or more.
It poses an even more significant threat to grain quality, animal and human health causing vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects in humans and livestock.
According to the complaint, Jian received Chinese government funding for her research on the pathogen in China. It is further alleged that Jian’s boyfriend, Liu, worked at a Chinese university where he conducted research on the same pathogen.
Liu flew from Shanghai to Detroit Metropolitan Airport’s McNamara Terminal on July 27, 2024. Upon arrival, he was inspected and interviewed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers who found a wad of tissues crumpled up in a small pocket in Liu’s backpack.
The tissues concealed a note in Chinese, a round piece of filter paper with a series of circles drawn on it, and four clear plastic baggies with small clumps of reddish plant material inside.
When confronted by CBP officers, Liu lied at first but then admitted to smuggling Fusarium graminearum into America to conduct research at the University of Michigan’s Molecular Plant-Microbe Interaction Laboratory in Ann Arbor, where his girlfriend Jian worked as a postdoctoral research fellow since August 2023.
