2 Chinese nationals charged with smuggling ‘potential agroterrorism’ fungus into US

“…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 research on it at the laboratory at the University of Michigan where his girlfriend, Jian, worked,” according to a DOJ press release…”