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The Justice Department on Tuesday charged two Chinese researchers with attempting to smuggle a fungus dubbed "Fusarium graminearum," into the U.S. which it claimed scientific research "classifies as a potential agroterrorism weapon." The two researchers, identified as 33-year-old Yunqing Jian and 34-year-old Zunyong Liu, were allegedly receiving funding from the Chinese government for their research, and were allegedly citizens of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The pair, who were supposedly dating, allegedly lied to U.S. officials about the fungus in Detroit last year, with Liu stating he did not know how the material ended up in his luggage. He...

Yunqing Jian, 33, first entered the country on a fraudulently obtained F1 student visa, the FBI says One of the two Chinese nationals arrested for allegedly smuggling a toxic crop-killing pathogen, which also has devastating health effects on humans, stuffed the noxious fungus into her boots while entering the United States in 2022, documents show. According to an arrest affidavit for University of Michigan post-doctoral research fellow Yunqing Jian and her boyfriend, Zunyong Liu, Jian first brought Fusarium graminearum, described as a "potential agroterrorism weapon" in scientific literature, in August 2022. A transcribed WeChat conversation between Jian and Liu shows...

What is common corn smut? Common corn smut is a fungal disease that affects field, pop, and sweet corn, as well as the corn relative teosinte (Zea mexicana).

A Chinese national couple was hit with criminal charges Tuesday for allegedly smuggling a dangerous fungus into the US capable of destroying crops and poisoning humans and livestock. Zunyong Liu, 34, was caught by US Customs and Border Protection officers attempting to smuggle Fusarium graminearum – a biological pathogen considered to be “a potential agroterrorism weapon” – into the US via the Detroit Metropolitan Airport last July, according to a criminal complaint filed in a federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan. Liu initially made false statements about his visit to the US and his knowledge of the pathogen...

DETROIT — Federal agents have arrested a University of Michigan scholar from China on charges she tried to smuggle a biological pathogen into the U.S. characterized as a potential agricultural terrorism weapon that can be used for targeting food crops. The FBI counterintelligence case against UM scholar Yunqing Jian, 33, and her boyfriend, 34-year-old Zunyong Liu, was unsealed in federal court in Detroit on Tuesday and marks the second time in less than a week a Chinese national with ties to the university has been charged with federal crimes. On Friday, prosecutors unsealed a criminal case against a former University...

Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, citizens of the People’s Republic of China, were allegedly receiving Chinese government funding for their research, some of which at the University of Michigan, officials said. "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...

Two Chinese nationals have been charged with allegedly smuggling into the U.S. a fungus called "Fusarium graminearum, which scientific literature classifies as a potential agroterrorism weapon," the Justice Department said Tuesday. Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, citizens of the People’s Republic of China, were allegedly receiving Chinese government funding for their research, some of which at the University of Michigan, the Justice Department said.