The United States government has accused the following individuals of committing espionage against the U.S., including corporations, while working for Chinese intelligence agencies, persons, or other entities. Some have resulted in convictions while others have led to exonerations. Between March 2008 and July 2010, 44 individuals were convicted by the United States Department of Justice in 26 cases involving espionage on behalf of China.
Accused of espionage
Xudong Yao Xudong Yao, also known as "William Yao," at the time 57, is a naturalized U.S. Citizen and a software engineer wanted for his alleged involvement in the theft of proprietary information from a locomotive manufacturer in Chicago, Illinois. Yao is believed to be currently residing in China. On November 18, 2015, Yao traveled from China to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. According to the federal indictment, he possessed stolen trade secret information, which included nine copies of a Chicago company's control system source code and systems specifications explaining how the code worked. Yao was charged with nine counts of theft of electronic files. U.S. authorities said he fled to China with the proprietary information.
Yanqing Ye On January 28, 2020, the FBI issued an arrest warrant for Yanqing Ye on charges of being an agent of a foreign government, visa fraud, making false statements, and conspiracy. Ye is a Lieutenant of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the armed forces of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). While studying at Boston University's Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering from October 2017 to April 2019, Ye allegedly continued to work as a PLA Lieutenant completing numerous assignments from PLA officers such as conducting research, assessing United States military websites, and sending United States documents and information to China. Ye is believed to currently be in China.
Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi On July 21, 2020, Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi were charged in an 11-counts indictment with hacking into the computer systems of hundreds of companies, governments, non-governmental organizations, and individual dissidents, clergy, and democratic and human rights activists in the United States and abroad. The defendants had recently probed for vulnerabilities in computer networks of companies developing COVID-19 vaccines, testing technology, and treatments.
Zhang Haoran, Tan Dailin, Jiang Lizhi, Qian Chuan, and Fu Qiang On September 16, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Chinese hackers Zhang Haoran, Tan Dailin, Jiang Lizhi, Qian Chuan, and Fu Qiang with breaching more than 100 companies, think tanks, universities and government agencies around the world. The DOJ linked them to APT 41 hacking activities.
Chenguang Gong In February 2024, Chenguang Gong, 57, of San Jose, California, was arrested on federal charges alleging he stole trade secret technologies developed for use by the United States government to detect nuclear missile launches and to track ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Gong is a former engineer at a Southern California company.
Linwei Ding On March 6, 2024, a federal grand jury indicted Linwei Ding, aka Leon Ding, charging him with four counts of theft of trade secrets in connection with an alleged plan to steal from Google LLC (Google) proprietary information related to artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Ding, 38, a national of the People's Republic of China and resident of Newark, California, transferred sensitive Google trade secrets and other confidential information from Google's network to his personal account while secretly affiliating himself with PRC-based companies in the AI industry. In February 2025, a federal grand jury issued a superseding indictment against Ding, charging him with seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of trade secret theft, replacing the previous four-count indictment.
Linda Sun
John Harold Rogers In January 2025, John Harold Rogers was indicted and arrested for alleged conspiracy to steal Federal Reserve trade secrets for the Chinese government. Rogers worked as a former senior advisor to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors's division of international finance from 2010 until 2021. He allegedly shared confidential information with Chinese co-conspirators and was charged with conspiracy to commit economic espionage and with making false statements.
On February 3, 2026, a federal jury acquitted Rogers of espionage charges. https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/former-fed-adviser-acquitted-of-economic-espionage-conspiracy-charges-2b3a705b
Jian Zhao, Li Tian, and Ruoyu Duan On March 6, 2025, Jian Zhao, and Li Tian, both active-duty U.S. Army soldiers, along with Ruoyu Duan, a former U.S. Army soldier, were arrested. Tian and Duan were charged with conspiring to commit bribery and theft of government property, specifically U.S. military information. Zhao was charged with conspiring to obtain and transmit national defense information to individuals based in China, and also for bribery and theft of government property.
Michael Charles Schena On March 7, 2025, Michael Charles Schena, 42, of Alexandria, Virginia, was arrested on criminal charges related to his alleged participation in a criminal conspiracy to gather, transmit, or lose national defense information to the People's Republic of China. Schena is employed by the U.S. Department of State (DOS) working out of DOS Headquarters in Washington, D.C. and possessed a Top Secret security clearance. The FBI affidavit includes mention of Schena's invoice for an iPhone that he allegedly used to share the information. Schena was sentenced to four years in prison in September 2025.
Yin Kecheng and Zhou Shuai In March 2025, the United States Department of Justice unsealed indictments against Chinese nationals Yin Kecheng (尹可成), also known as “YKC” or “YIN,” and Zhou Shuai (周帅), also known as “Coldface” or “ZHOU,” in connection with a prolonged cyber espionage campaign attributed to the threat group APT27, also known as Emissary Panda, Bronze Union, and Silk Typhoon. The indictments allege that, between 2011 and 2024, the two individuals carried out unauthorized intrusions into the networks of U.S. defense contractors, technology firms, government agencies, and other organizations to steal sensitive data for profit and on behalf of Chinese state security services, namely the Ministry of State Security (MSS) and the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). Their methods reportedly involved exploiting network vulnerabilities, deploying persistent malware, and using virtual private servers and malicious domains to exfiltrate data. Zhou is additionally accused of gathering information on telecommunications, border activity, and individuals working in media, civil service, and religious sectors, under MSS instruction. The case has been cited by U.S. officials as evidence of a growing hacking-for-hire ecosystem in China, where private actors operate with state support. As part of the enforcement action, U.S. authorities seized infrastructure used in the operations and imposed sanctions on Zhou and his firm, Shanghai Heiying Information Technology Co., Ltd., in addition to previous sanctions against Yin. Both defendants remain at large.
Xu Zewei and Zhang Yu
Xu Zewei (徐泽伟), a 33-year-old Chinese national, and Zhang Yu (张宇), 44, were indicted in the United States for their roles in a series of cyber intrusions that took place between February 2020 and June 2021. Xu, who was arrested in Milan, Italy, on July 3, 2025, at the request of U.S. authorities, was an IT manager at Shanghai Powerock Network Co. Ltd., a company alleged to have conducted hacking operations under the direction of the Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB), a division of China's Ministry of State Security (MSS). Zhang Yu remained at large. The indictment alleged that both individuals acted as state-sponsored hackers, targeting U.S. universities, immunologists, and virologists to steal COVID-19 research, and later exploited vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server software as part of the large-scale “HAFNIUM” campaign, which compromised thousands of computers worldwide.
The nine-count indictment, unsealed in the Southern District of Texas, charged Xu and Zhang with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to cause damage to and obtain information by unauthorized access to protected computers, obtaining information by unauthorized access, intentional damage to protected computers, and aggravated identity theft. The charges related to their alleged theft of sensitive research and mass exploitation of email servers, with maximum penalties ranging from two to twenty years per count. The indictment highlighted the use of private contractors and companies in China to obscure state involvement in cyber-espionage campaigns, resulting in widespread compromise of U.S. and global entities.
U.S. authorities failed to provide enough evidence within 40 days, but Xu Zewei has not been released to date.
Chenguang Gong In July 2025, Chenguang Gong, a 59-year-old dual U.S.-China citizen and former engineer at a Southern California defense contractor, reportedly pleaded guilty to one count of theft of military trade secrets. Hired in January 2023 as an application-specific integrated circuit design manager, Gong transferred over 3,600 files—many marked "proprietary" and "for official use only"—to personal devices between March and April 2023. The files included designs for advanced infrared sensors used in space-based systems to detect hypersonic, ballistic, and nuclear missiles, as well as for countering heat-seeking missiles. Over 1,800 of the files were taken after Gong had accepted a job with a competing firm. U.S. prosecutors revealed that from 2014 to 2022, Gong held positions at various U.S. tech companies while actively seeking involvement in Chinese government "Talent Programs," which aim to recruit overseas experts for technology transfer, including for military applications. Gong also proposed projects to Chinese organizations involving military-grade sensor technology and traveled to China to seek funding, stating his intent to support China's high-end military integrated circuit development.
Accused of related crimes Mingqing Xiao On April 21, 2021, Mingqing Xiao, 59, a mathematics professor and researcher at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, was charged with two counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement. Xiao is accused of fraudulently obtaining $151,099 in federal grant money from the National Science Foundation (NSF) by concealing additional sources of funding from Shenzhen University and a government science foundation in Guandong province of China.
Pled guilty or convicted (espionage) Larry Wu-tai Chin In February 1986, Larry Wu-tai Chin was convicted of 17 counts of espionage, conspiracy, and tax evasion, including two life terms, but killed himself before he could be sentenced.
Chin worked in the U.S. intelligence community for nearly 35 years while providing China with classified information.Eftimiades, p. 21.