A Chinese foreign agent who spied on the relative of a top Taiwanese official was arrested at the airport while attempting to flee the United States, the Justice Department said.
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced Sunday that the FBI arrested 34-year-old Wanying “Heather” Zhang at Los Angeles International Airport after federal officials accused her of acting as an unregistered agent for China. Zhang, a real estate agent in California, will appear in federal court on Monday.
“We just arrested a Chinese foreign agent at LAX attempting to depart for China,” Essayli posted on X. “Zhang traveled to Seattle in 2025 and, at the direction of PRC officials, surveilled a close relative of a Taiwanese government official, sending photos, videos, and license plate information to those officials.”
The arrest comes just a few weeks after President Donald Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington, D.C., for a series of diplomatic meetings. The Trump administration has placed a high focus on countering China’s influence and espionage operations in the United States.
Essayli said that Zhang coordinated the trip to Seattle with another person and “used tradecraft to avoid detection.” A law enforcement official told CBS News that Zhang is accused of spying on Ting-Yu Lai, the son of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te.
“If the PRC [People’s Republic of China] wish to obtain leverage over the President of Taiwan during any potential conflict, the location and pictures of the close relatives of a high-ranking Taiwanese government official, including pictures of their homes and cars, could be useful to the PRC,” FBI Special Agent Kevin Holt wrote in an October 3 criminal complaint obtained by CBS.
Holt wrote in the complaint that Zhang and an unnamed person flew from Las Vegas into Seattle on September 1, 2025, before renting a vehicle and driving to the home of Ting-Yu Lai. They allegedly filmed Lai and his family entering the home.
“Saw him. Young male. It’s that young one,” Zhang texted a Chinese government official, according to messages included in the complaint. “I am videorecording.”
That trip came a few months after Zhang traveled to China where she met with officials to discuss the surveillance operation, according to investigators.
“Zhang was in contact with at least two people whom she appeared to acknowledge worked for the PRC government,” Holt said in the criminal complaint.
In the week leading up to the surveillance mission, Zhang allegedly texted a Chinese official, “I will be busy with work in L.A. this week. I will probably go to Seattle next week.” The official responded by thanking her for her work, according to the complaint.
A spokeswoman for Taiwan’s president called the incident a “classic case of transnational repression” with the “aim of suppressing, threatening, or even harming advocates of freedom and democracy and their families.”
