The FBI arrested a 34-year-old California woman, real estate agent Wanying Zhang (or Heather Zhang), a naturalized U.S. citizen, who spied on “family members of a high-ranking Taiwanese government official at their residence in the United States.” She was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport while about to fly to China (Department of Justice, October 5, 2026).
The DOJ press release is mysteriously coy about who is the high-ranking Taiwanese government official. But news reports reveal that she is accused of “secretly working for Beijing to surveil the president of Taiwan’s family in the U.S.” The Associated Press says that the FBI divulged the target on social media.
The FBI and federal prosecutors allege Wanying Zhang surveilled the house of the president’s son and sent photos, videos and license plate information for his vehicles to a Chinese government official. The federal criminal complaint does not name the alleged target, but the FBI’s rapid response account on the social media platform X said it was the president’s son. Ting-Yu Lai, the president’s elder son, lives and works in the Seattle area as an engineer….
At the direction of Chinese officials, Zhang and another person flew to Seattle on Sept. 1, 2025, and conducted surveillance outside the target’s home, according to an affidavit with the criminal complaint. A home security camera near the target’s home recorded the pair filming the target and their family from a vehicle, the affidavit said.
Zhang then allegedly sent a Chinese official information related to the surveillance, including photos, videos and license plate information from the target’s vehicles….
According to the affidavit, Zhang attended the University of International Relations in Beijing, which the FBI agent writing the affidavit said is known to be affiliated closely with China’s intelligence apparatus.
A spokeswoman for President Lai Ching-te’s office confirmed that relatives of the president had been targeted and took the opportunity to criticize the Chinese Communist Party’s transnational repression more generally. “Taiwan condemns in the strongest terms such barbaric acts—which disregard human rights and national sovereignty and aim to suppress, threaten, or even harm individuals advocating for freedom and democracy or their families—as such behavior should not be tolerated in the civilized world.”
The AP notes that Zhang’s case “is the latest in a series of Justice Department prosecutions aimed at rooting out alleged covert agents advancing Beijing’s interests on American soil.
“Many of the cases have centered on what the Justice Department says is China’s aggressive effort to locate and harass pro-democracy activists living in the U.S. and suppress their speech. The Justice Department also says Beijing is determined to sway American public opinion in its favor by cultivating relationships with political figures seen as having access to the levers of power.”
DOJ says in its release that Zhang was arrested “on a one count complaint charging her with acting in the United States as an unregistered agent of the government of the People’s Republic of China.” The failure to register violates U.S. law but hardly seems central to the nature of the crime. Perhaps charges about Zhang’s spying will be added later.
