California Woman Arrested at LAX, Accused of Spying for China on Taiwan President’s Son

Federal authorities arrested a California woman at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday and charged her with acting as an unregistered agent for China, accusing her of surveilling a son of Taiwan’s president at the direction of Chinese officials, the FBI said.

Wanying Zhang, 34, of Irvine, who is also known as Heather, was taken into custody before her planned departure to China, according to the FBI. Prosecutors charged her with acting as an unregistered foreign agent, a federal offense that requires anyone working on behalf of a foreign government in the United States to notify the attorney general.

Surveillance in Seattle, according to the complaint

According to the Justice Department, Zhang traveled to Seattle in 2025 at the direction of Chinese officials and subsequently sent them photos, video and license plate information of the Taiwanese leader’s son and his family. The FBI did not directly name the alleged target in its statement, but later shared a New York Post report identifying him as Lai Ting-yu, a U.S. resident and a son of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te.

Zhang used tradecraft to avoid detection and never notified Washington that she was acting for a foreign government, Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement. It was not immediately clear whether Zhang has a defense attorney. She is scheduled to appear on Monday in federal court in Los Angeles, according to Essayli.

A case with diplomatic weight

The arrest lands at a sensitive point in U.S.-China-Taiwan relations. Lai and his Democratic Progressive Party champion Taiwan’s separate identity from China, a position that frequently angers Beijing, which views the self-ruled island as Chinese territory. Washington does not have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but the United States is the island’s most important international backer and weapons supplier.

Taiwan’s presidential office described Zhang’s alleged actions as a “typical case of transnational repression” and thanked the U.S. government for protecting Taiwanese citizens, according to Reuters. “Our country expresses the strongest condemnation of such barbaric conduct that disregards human rights and the sovereignty of nations,” spokesperson Karen Kuo said in a statement.

The Chinese embassy in Washington and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and China’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment, according to Reuters.

Reporting based on coverage by Reuters, CNN and Fox 11 Los Angeles.