US prosecutors have charged two Chinese nationals with acting as agents of China's security service, accusing them of gathering intelligence about US Navy bases and trying to identify navy members willing to spy for Beijing, the Justice Department said on Tuesday.
The suspects facilitated a "dead-drop payment" of at least $10,000 in a locker at a recreational facility in Northern California in 2022 in exchange for US national security information that had already been passed to Chinese intelligence, the justice department said.
Yuance Chen, 38, a legal permanent resident living in Happy Valley, Oregon, and Liren “Ryan” Lai, 39, who arrived in Houston from China in April on a tourist visa, were arrested on Friday, the department said in a statement.
The pair worked on behalf of China's Ministry of State Security and made their initial appearances in federal court in Houston and Portland, Oregon on Monday, it said.
The Justice Department gave no details on who provided the national security information or the military members targeted for recruitment.
After the 2022 incident, the pair, "continued to work on behalf of the MSS, including to help identify potential assets for MSS recruitment within the ranks of the US Navy," the justice department said.
"The Chinese Communist Party thought they were getting away with their scheme to operate on US soil, utilizing spy craft, like dead drops, to pay their sources," FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement.
In a statement to Reuters, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said he was not aware of the specific case but said the allegations were "assumptions and speculations", accusing the US of hypocrisy in its global intelligence operations.
(Reporting by Christian Martinez; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Cynthia Osterman)