Chinese Couple Charged for Smuggling Potential ‘Bio-Weapon’ Into U.S.

A University of Michigan researcher and her boyfriend — both Chinese nationals — have been charged for smuggling a potentially dangerous pathogen into the U.S..

In a Tuesday evening press release, the Justice Department announced that 33-year-old Yunqing Jian and 34-year-old Zunyong Liu were charged with conspiracy, smuggling goods into the United States, false statements, and visa fraud. Jian is a postdoctoral fellow at Michigan.

According to the release, the couple smuggled Fusarium graminearum into the U.S.  The fungus, the Justice Department added, is classified as an “potential agroterrorism weapon.” The release continues:

This noxious fungus causes “head blight,” a disease of wheat, barley, maize, and rice, and is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year. Fusarium graminearum’s toxins cause vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects in humans and livestock.

According to the complaint, Jian received Chinese government funding for her work on this pathogen in China. The complaint also alleges that Jian’s electronics contain information describing her membership in and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. It is further alleged that Jian’s boyfriend, Liu, works at a Chinese university where he conducts research on the same pathogen and that he first lied but then admitted to smuggling Fusarium graminearum into America—through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport—so that he could conduct research on it at the laboratory at the University of Michigan where his girlfriend, Jian, worked.

In a statement sent to Fox News, FBI Director Kash Patel said the case was a “sobering reminder that the Chinese Communist Party continues to deploy operatives and researchers to infiltrate our institutions and target our food supply.”

“Smuggling a known agroterrorism agent into the U.S. is not just a violation of law,” Patel added, “it’s a direct threat to national security.”

Watch above via Fox News