The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested a Californian woman at Los Angeles International Airport on Oct. 4 on suspicion of acting as an unregistered agent for Beijing and surveilling a close relative of a Taiwanese government official, officials said.
Wanying “Heather” Zhang, 34, who lives in Irvine, Orange County, was taken into custody by FBI Los Angeles when she attempted to leave the United States for China, according to first assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bilal Essayli.
The FBI said in an X post that “she surveilled the Taiwanese President’s son and his family — filming their home, vehicles, and reporting information back to PRC handlers,” using the acronym for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.
FBI director Kash Patel told America’s adversaries to “take note.”
“America is no longer a safe place to run your espionage operations,” he said in a post on X. “This FBI is hunting threats to our national security wherever they hide—and bringing them to justice.”
Zhang’s target was Ting-Yu Lai, the son of Taiwanese President Chig-Te Lai, Essayli told Fox News. He also confirmed that the woman is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Ting-Yu Lai, an electrical engineer with a doctorate in her 30s, works for a private company in the United States, according to a report by Taiwan’s news media SETN.com.
Zhang traveled to Seattle in 2025 to do the above “foreign intelligence operations” on direct order of Chinese state officials, according to the affidavit.
She is listed as a real estate agent with JC Pacific Capital Inc., according to Zillow and Homes.com, with nine years of working experience in Irvine, California.
The prosecutors accused Zhang of coordinating the trip with an associate and using tradecraft to avoid being detected. They said she never registered her work in the United States to be a foreign agent.
Zhang’s arraignment in a Los Angeles federal court will be on Oct. 5.
