Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have filed a criminal complaint against a California woman, accusing her of acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government by travelling to the Seattle area in 2025 to photograph and track a son of Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te and his family in the United States, allegedly on the direction of Chinese officials. The woman, Wanying "Heather" Zhang, 34, of Irvine, California, was arrested by the FBI on October 4 at Los Angeles International Airport, reportedly as she was preparing to board a flight to China. She is due to make an initial appearance in federal court in Los Angeles.
According to prosecutors, Zhang travelled to the Seattle area in September 2025 at the direction of Chinese officials, rented a car and drove to the home of the target's family, where she and an associate photographed and filmed the family and recorded their vehicle's license plate information. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, who announced the case, said Zhang used tradecraft to avoid detection and never registered with the U.S. government as required by law for people acting on behalf of a foreign power. Prosecutors say she then transmitted the photographs, video and vehicle information to her contacts in China.
The criminal complaint against Zhang does not publicly identify the family member she is accused of surveilling. Several news organizations, including the New York Post and CBS News, citing law-enforcement sources, reported that the target was Lai Ting-yu, a U.S.-based son of President Lai Ching-te. As of this report, neither the U.S. Justice Department nor Taiwan's government has formally confirmed that identification in a public statement, though Taiwan's own response has treated the case as targeting the president's family.
Taiwan's Presidential Office called the case "a typical example of transnational repression" and thanked U.S. authorities for protecting Taiwanese citizens in the United States. FBI Director Kash Patel, commenting on the arrest, said foreign adversaries should take note that "America is no longer a safe place" to run espionage operations. China's foreign ministry and its embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the news organizations that reported the case.
The case is the latest in a string of U.S. prosecutions alleging Chinese intelligence activity aimed at Taiwanese officials and their associates. In 2025, federal prosecutors in California charged a Chinese American man, Sun Yaoning, 65, also known as "Mike" Sun, of Chino Hills in San Bernardino County, California, with acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government; he pleaded guilty in October 2025 to one count of illegally acting as a foreign agent and was later sentenced to four years in prison for conduct that included monitoring then-Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen's movements during her 2023 visit to California and reporting them to Chinese officials. Separately, Taiwan itself prosecuted several current and former officials on espionage charges in 2025, including a former aide in President Lai Ching-te's office. The new case underscores growing public attention in both Taipei and Washington to what both governments describe as Beijing's efforts to conduct surveillance and intimidation beyond China's borders.