FBI arrests Irvine woman for allegedly acting as unregistered Chinese agent

The FBI arrested a suspected Chinese foreign agent at the Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday after she allegedly surveilled the Taiwanese President’s family.

Bill Essayli, the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, posted on social media platform X that FBI agents in Los Angeles nabbed 34-year-old Wanying “Heather” Zhang of Irvine, Calif., as she was attempting to depart for China.

Zhang was arrested on a federal complaint charging her with acting as an unregistered Chinese agent, Essayli said. She is slated to appear in federal court in Los Angeles Monday.

FBI Director Kash Patel appeared to laud the arrest on social media. “Foreign adversaries take note: America is no longer a safe place to run your espionage operations,” Patel wrote. “Allegedly surveil a foreign leader’s family on U.S. soil for [China]—and try to catch a flight back to Shanghai? Not happening.”

A spokesperson for Taiwan’s presidential office described on Monday Zhang’s purported actions as a “classic case of transnational repression” and thanked the U.S. government.

“Our country expresses the strongest condemnation of such barbaric conduct that disregards human rights and the sovereignty of nations,” the spokesperson said.

Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims to have sovereignty over, has been a point of contention between Washington and Beijing for decades. Washington, while acknowledging Beijing’s position on Taiwan, has maintained close unofficial relations with Taipei, though those ties have been mired in uncertainty under U.S. President Donald Trump. China, meanwhile, has long branded Taiwan’s leader William Lai Ching-te as a separatist and a “destroyer of peace.”

During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent state visit to the U.S., President Trump said of the topic: “We didn’t spend a lot of time talking about Taiwan.”

Zhang’s arrest comes months after Eileen Wang, a former mayor of Arcadia, Calif., pleaded guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government. The former mayor admitted to promoting pro-Beijing content in the U.S. Both cases are part of a reported pattern of people acting on behalf of the Chinese government to target Chinese dissidents outside of China.

While the American public’s view of China has improved, and even as Beijing makes diplomatic overtures to the Trump Administration, many in Washington remain hawkish against the U.S.’s geopolitical rival. The latest report from the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China continues to warn about Beijing’s transnational repression activities, including intimidation and the targeting of Hong Kongers, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese figures, and other Chinese dissidents.

Sen. Rick Scott (R, Fla.) posted on X: “This is only further PROOF of what we already know—they’re actively infiltrating our country and threatening our national security.”

What U.S. authorities are alleging

Authorities filed a criminal complaint against Zhang in federal court, CBS News and Fox News reported, with an affidavit from an FBI special agent.

According to a copy of the 27-page complaint Fox News obtained, Zhang, who previously attended a university in Beijing and was a registered real estate agent in Southern California, was allegedly in contact with at least two individuals apparently working for the Chinese government. Essayli, speaking to Fox News Sunday, said that Zhang was a naturalized U.S. citizen.

“She was conducting surveillance on behalf of the Chinese government," Essayli told Fox News. “And she was spying on a relative of the President of Taiwan here in the U.S.”

Essayli, in his X post, added that Zhang “used tradecraft to avoid detection” and that “she never notified the Attorney General she was acting for a foreign government.”

Under federal law, those who act as agents for other nations without prior notification to the U.S. Attorney General may face up to 10 years in prison, fines, or both.

Zhang and another unnamed individual allegedly traveled from Las Vegas to Seattle around Sept. 1, 2025. The two then rented a black SUV and headed to the home of the victim they later surveilled. The complaint alleged that a home security camera near the victim’s house recorded Zhang and the individual “appearing to film” the victim and his family.

The complaint does not name the victim, but CBS News reported, citing unidentified law enforcement sources, that the target was Ting-yu Lai, the son of Taiwanese President Lai.

Zhang then allegedly messaged one of her Chinese government contacts, according to the complaint, where she sent: “Saw him. Young male. It’s that young one.” She then sent two license plate numbers, which the FBI agent found were both registered to the victim. The FBI agent wrote in the complaint that they were able to access details of Zhang’s messages following a search warrant on her iCloud account.

“If [China] were to 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 [China],” the FBI special agent wrote.