A federal court in California sentenced two Chinese nationals to 30 months in prison each on Friday for acting as agents of China's government and trying to recruit members of the United States military to spy for Beijing, the Department of Justice announced.
Liren "Ryan" Lai, 40, and Yuance Chen, 39, will also serve three years of supervised release after prison. Both pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as agents of a foreign government without notifying the Attorney General, and to acting as such agents.
A scheme running since at least May 2021
According to court documents cited by the Justice Department, Lai and Chen began acting under the direction and control of China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) no later than May 2021. The MSS is China's principal civilian intelligence service, responsible for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence operations.
Their clandestine work included facilitating secret "dead drop" cash payments in exchange for information related to United States national security, gathering information about U.S. military personnel and installations, and helping efforts to recruit potential intelligence assets from inside the U.S. military.
"Liren Lai and Yuance Chen operated in a long-running scheme to undermine U.S. national security by supporting Chinese intelligence operations and recruiting in the United States," said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg.
The $10,000 dead drop and the Navy photographs
The government's sentencing memorandum detailed a clandestine cash payment of approximately $10,000 in January 2022, and a further payment of the same amount in May 2022, left in a backpack in a locker at a recreational facility in Livermore, California, for collection by someone else.
Beginning in 2022, Chen gathered information about U.S. military installations and personnel at Lai's direction and at the direction of MSS officers. He photographed Navy Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Washington, and took photographs and video of recruits and sailors at a Navy recruiting station in Southern California, and collected personal information on a Navy employee.
U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian for the Northern District of California said the sentencing should serve as a clear warning: "If you attempt to jeopardize the safety and security of our service members, our citizens, or our nation, justice will find you."
Arrests, pleas and what the case did not prove
FBI agents arrested Lai and Chen on June 27, 2025, and a federal grand jury in the Northern District of California indicted them on July 1. Lai pleaded guilty on December 12, 2025, and Chen followed on February 20, 2026.
The Justice Department did not say how many times the pair facilitated payments, nor how many people they successfully recruited in the United States. The case is a reminder of how foreign intelligence services try to reach serving personnel, and it lands days before the U.S. midterm elections, when national security and China are again at the center of the political debate.
Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Al Jazeera and Dawn, October 31 and November 1, 2026.