Two Chinese Nationals Sentenced to 30 Months for Acting as Agents of China's Ministry of State Security

Two nationals of the People's Republic of China were each sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release for conspiring to act and acting as agents of the PRC government without notifying the Attorney General, the Justice Department said on October 30, 2026.

Liren "Ryan" Lai, 40, and Yuance Chen, 39, pleaded guilty to both offenses. Lai entered his plea on Dec. 12, 2025, and Chen on Feb. 20, according to the department.

According to court documents cited by the department, the two began acting as agents of the Ministry of State Security (MSS), China's principal civilian intelligence service, no later than May 2021. The department said they facilitated a roughly $10,000 "dead drop" cash payment in January 2022, left in a locker at a recreational facility in Livermore, California. It said Chen gathered photographs of Navy Base Kitsap in Washington and images of recruits and sailors at a Navy recruiting station in Southern California, and collected information on military personnel seen as potential intelligence targets.

The department said the MSS directed Lai in May 2025 to travel to Phoenix to facilitate another payment of about $20,000. Both men were arrested on June 27, 2025, and indicted in the Northern District of California on July 1, 2025. The FBI San Francisco Field Office led the investigation.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice.

Originally published by True News: https://truenews.bagleyenterprises.net/stories/629