Chinese national who smuggled pathogens into Michigan has been deported, FBI says
A Chinese national who pleaded guilty to smuggling dangerous pathogens into Michigan has been deported, an FBI official said.
Yunqing Jian, 33, from the People's Republic of China, was sentenced Nov. 12 to time served while awaiting disposition of the federal case, the U.S. Attorney's Office previously said.
Jian, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, was arrested in June along with her boyfriend, Zunyong Liu, for smuggling in a fungus called Fusarium graminearum. The noxious fungus is known to cause "head blight," a disease that affects barley, rice, wheat and maize, resulting in economic losses worth billions of dollars each year.
Liu has returned to China, and authorities say he is not likely to return to the United States.
Dan Bongino, deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, mentioned the case in a roundup of recent FBI cases he posted Monday on social media:
"Yunqing Jian, a citizen of the People's Republic of China, pleaded guilty to charges of smuggling a DANGEROUS biological pathogen into our country and then lying about it to FBI agents, and was DEPORTED. The FBI will not stand by and allow our foreign adversaries to exploit our top-notch university facilities in furtherance of their agendas," Bongino said.
Another person, 28-year-old Chengxuan Han, was also arrested in June and pleaded no contest to three smuggling charges and to making false statements to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. Han was sentenced in September to time served and returned to China.
Last month, federal investigators charged three other Chinese nationals with conspiracy to smuggle goods into the U.S. and false statements. Court records show that all three men traveled on J-1 visas as scholars at the University of Michigan and lived in Ann Arbor.