FBI Arrests California Realtor at LAX Over Alleged Spying on Taiwan President's Son
Wanying "Heather" Zhang, 34, was stopped before boarding a flight to Shanghai and charged with acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government.
FBI agents arrested a California real estate agent at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday, accusing her of acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government by surveilling the U.S.-based son of Taiwan's president.
Wanying "Heather" Zhang, 34, of Irvine, was taken into custody on October 4 as she prepared to board a flight to Shanghai. She is charged with acting as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general. No court date has been announced, and it was not immediately clear who is representing her.
According to the criminal complaint, Zhang was introduced to a Chinese government official in June 2025 and received her assignment at a meeting in Changsha, China. Investigators say that in September 2025 she and an associate flew from Las Vegas to Seattle, rented a black Nissan Rogue and drove to the home of Ting-Yu Lai, the son of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te. Ting-Yu Lai is an engineer who works for Philips.
Images from a neighbor's security camera cited in the complaint allegedly show the two women appearing to film Lai, his wife and their child as they arrived home that evening. The complaint says Zhang photographed and recorded the residence, vehicles and relatives and passed along license plate information.
Messages recovered from Zhang's iCloud account allegedly show her writing to a Chinese government handler: "Saw him. Young male. It's that young one," followed by license plate numbers.
FBI Special Agent Kevin Holt wrote in the complaint that "if the PRC wish to obtain leverage over the President of Taiwan," pictures of their homes and cars "could be useful to the PRC."
The case lands amid sharp tension between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan, which China claims as its territory. Taiwan received the first two of 66 new F-16V Block 70 fighters from the United States last week, a delivery that was nearly seven years in the making.
Cases involving unregistered foreign agents are a recurring tool for federal prosecutors seeking to disrupt covert influence and surveillance operations on U.S. soil. The charge does not require prosecutors to prove the work involved classified information; it turns on acting at the direction of a foreign government without telling the Justice Department.
The complaint alleges that the surveillance was meant to give Beijing a pressure point on a foreign leader's family. The allegations have not been tested in court, and Zhang is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. The complaint does not say whether the associate who traveled with her has been charged.
The complaint's timeline runs from the June 2025 introduction, through the Changsha meeting and the September 2025 trip to Seattle, to the messages sent afterward to her alleged handler. Authorities have not said when the FBI began tracking her, or why they moved at the airport.
The allegation that she filmed a family arriving home and reported license plates is likely to draw close attention in court, because it points to surveillance of a private family's daily routine rather than public records.
