California woman arrested at LAX for spying on Taiwan president's son for China
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "California woman arrested at LAX for spying on Taiwan president's son for China")
Wanying Zhang was arrested for being an agent of the People's Republic of China. Photograph: (Department of Justice)
A woman named Wanying Zhang, also known as "Heather", spied on the Taiwan president's son in Seattle and was arrested at LAX while trying to flee to Shanghai. Text messages show she was in contact with Chinese handlers, telling them about Lai's whereabouts.
A California realtor was arrested at Los Angeles Airport on Sunday on suspicion of spying for China. Wanying Zhang, also known as "Heather", was taken into custody while trying to board a flight to Shanghai. The woman reportedly worked with handlers from the People's Republic of China to keep an eye on the son of Taiwan's president Ching-Te Lai. The 34-year-old Chinese American is a resident of Irvine, Orange County.
Ting-Yu Lai works for electronics company Philips in Seattle, Washington, and was under the scanner of Chinese agents. The FBI released a criminal complaint on Sunday showing texts exchanged between Heather and other alleged agents. The messages are a key part of the government's case against Zhang.
Attorney General Bill Essayli said that Beijing is using Chinese-Americans “for their own foreign affairs because they are playing the long game to get a competitive advantage over us. She wasn't spying against us; she was allegedly conducting a campaign on behalf of Beijing.”
Heather went to Seattle to spy on Ting-Yu Lai
Zhang was also caught on CCTV sitting in a car with an accomplice and taking pictures of Lai's house and close relatives. Reports suggest that she travelled to Seattle in September 2025 to spy on Ting-Yu Lai. Zhang worked for a real estate firm with her husband, Edric Ding, before this.
"According to the affidavit, Zhang travelled to Seattle in 2025 and, at the direction of PRC officials, surveilled a close relative of a Taiwanese government official, sending photos, videos, and license plate information to those officials," Essayli said.
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The FBI's complaint against Zhang carries WeChat messages from Zhang's iCloud account sent to and received from two people believed to be Chinese government officials. The texts show them discussing tasks that led to the surveillance of the son of Taiwan's president. A message from September last year showed Zhang telling a Chinese government official that she had seen Lai, writing, "It's that young one."
The person asked Zhang to get on a call with him, but she told him that she was taking a video of Lai.
