US jails two Chinese nationals for spying

Liren Lai and Yuance Chen admitted to facilitating ‘dead drop’ cash payments worth at least $30,000 to people in the US.

Two Chinese nationals have been jailed in the United States after admitting to trying to recruit US military service members to spy for Beijing.

Liren “Ryan” Lai, 40, and Yuance Chen, 39, were each sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement on Friday.

The men sought to arrange “dead drop” cash payments in exchange for information related to US national security, the statement also said.

The pair operated a “long-running”, “extensive” and “brazen” scheme to undermine US national security and support Chinese intelligence operations and recruitment in the US, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A Eisenberg said.

According to court documents, Lai and Chen began acting as agents of China’s foreign intelligence arm, the Ministry of State Security, no later than May 2021.

Lai, who arrived in the US on a tourist visa, recruited Chen, a permanent resident, into the scheme and initially served as an intermediary between Chen and intelligence officers – until Chen was able to receive his orders directly from his handler.

In May 2022, they facilitated a secret cash payment of $10,000 from China, ordering US-based individuals to drop the cash at a specified location for collection by someone else, an arrangement known as a “dead drop”.

The two later carried out another similar operation, facilitating a payment of $20,000.

Chen and Lai also engaged in other forms of espionage, including obtaining photographs of a naval facility, military recruits, and active-duty sailors. Chen collected personal information about a US Navy employee and maintained detailed biographical information about military personnel who were potential intelligence targets.

The DOJ did not say how many times the pair had facilitated payments, nor how many people they had successfully recruited in the US.

The men were found guilty of two charges: conspiracy to act as agents of a foreign government without prior notification to the Attorney General; and acting as agents of a foreign government without prior notification.

Both pleaded guilty in court.

The pair were arrested and charged in June 2025.

In late August, US President Donald Trump said he knew China spied on the US, but “we spy on them too”.

In June, China announced that it had arrested a US citizen accused of espionage a day after US media reports said a scholar holding dual US and Myanmar citizenship was detained in early June.

The scholar, Min Zin, previously wrote opinion pieces on Myanmar politics that were critical of the military government, as well as the opposition groups it is fighting.