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FBI arrests California woman at LAX, accuses her of spying on Taiwan president's son for China
Wanying "Heather" Zhang, 34, was arrested before boarding a Shanghai-bound flight; prosecutors say she surveilled Ting-Yu Lai's family in Seattle in 2025 and sent photos and license plates to Chinese handlers. Taiwan condemned "transnational repression."
Why it matters
The FBI arrested 34-year-old Wanying "Heather" Zhang at Los Angeles International Airport on October 4 as she was about to board a flight to Shanghai. Bill Essayli, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, said Zhang is charged with one count of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, a federal offense.
Full report
According to a criminal complaint filed October 3 by FBI counterintelligence agent Kevin Holt, Zhang and a man identified only as "Individual 1" flew from Las Vegas to Seattle on September 1, 2025, rented a black Nissan Rogue SUV, and drove to the home of a close relative of a senior Taiwanese official. A neighbor's security camera allegedly captured the pair appearing to film Ting-Yu Lai and his family as they arrived home that evening.
The complaint says the FBI obtained Zhang's iCloud data under a search warrant and found WeChat messages to a Chinese government contact reporting "Saw him. Young male. It's that young one" and "I am videorecording," followed by two license plate numbers. Holt wrote that if China wished to gain leverage over Taiwan's president in a potential future conflict, the location and photographs of his close relatives' homes and vehicles "could be useful to the PRC."
Reactions
Taiwan Presidential Office spokesperson Karen Kuo said on October 5 that the case was a typical example of transnational repression aimed at intimidation, expressing the "strongest condemnation" of such barbaric conduct and thanking U.S. law enforcement for protecting Taiwanese people. China's foreign ministry said it was "not familiar" with the case and opposed hyping up so-called "Chinese spies" to smear China.
Essayli stressed that all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court. Zhang, an Irvine real estate agent, was due to make her first appearance in Los Angeles federal court on October 5; it was not immediately clear whether she had retained a lawyer.
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