Two men, one a permanent resident and the other a visitor who came to the United States on a tourist visa, have now been sentenced for a quiet kind of betrayal: reaching toward the people who guard a nation to see whether they could be bought. Their sentences of thirty months each close a legal chapter, but they open a larger question that reaches well beyond a single courtroom, about how far such patient networks can extend and how many ordinary service members were quietly approached along the way. In a moment when Washington and Beijing already watch one another with suspicion, the case rem
Two Chinese Nationals Sentenced to 30 Months for Recruiting US Service Members to Spy for Beijing
Two men, one a permanent resident and the other a visitor who came to the United States on a tourist visa, have now been sentenced for a quiet kind of betrayal: reaching toward the people who guard a nation to see whether they could be bought. Their sentences of thirty months each close a legal chapter, but they open a larger question that reaches well beyond a single courtroom, about how far such patient networks can extend and how many ordinary service members were quietly approached along the way. In a moment when Washington and Beijing already watch one another with suspicion, the case reminds us that espionage often moves through small, unglamorous acts, a cash bundle left at a set spot, a photograph taken from a distance, a file kept on a name.
On Friday, two Chinese nationals were sentenced in the United States to 30 months in prison each for trying to recruit American military service members to spy for Beijing. Liren "Ryan" Lai, 40, and Yuance Chen, 39, each pleaded guilty to acting as agents of a foreign government without notifying the Attorney General. They had been arrested in June 2025, and each will also serve three years of supervised release.
Court documents show that by May 2021 at the latest, the two were working for China's Ministry of State Security. Lai, who entered on a tourist visa, first served as the link between Chen and his intelligence handlers. Chen later took instructions directly from his own handler.
The money trail forms the clearest part of the case. In May 2022, the pair arranged a $10,000 cash payment from China, left at a designated spot for someone else to collect in a method known as a dead drop. A second operation involved $20,000. The payments were linked to information about US national security.
The pair also gathered photographs of a naval facility, military recruits and active-duty sailors, and Chen collected personal details on a Navy employee. Assistant Attorney General John A. Eisenberg called the operation "long-running," "extensive" and "brazen."
The Justice Department did not say how many payments were made or how many Americans were successfully recruited, so the full scope of the scheme remains uncertain.
Two Chinese nationals were sentenced in the United States on Friday to 30 months in prison each, after admitting they tried to recruit American military service members to spy for Beijing. The US Department of Justice announced the sentences, which also carry three years of supervised release for each man.
The defendants are Liren "Ryan" Lai, 40, and Yuance Chen, 39. Both pleaded guilty to two charges: conspiracy to act as agents of a foreign government without prior notification to the Attorney General, and acting as agents of a foreign government without that notification. They were arrested and charged in June 2025.
According to court documents, the two began working as agents of China's Ministry of State Security, its foreign intelligence arm, no later than May 2021. Lai had come to the US on a tourist visa. He brought in Chen, a permanent resident, and at first acted as the go-between linking Chen to intelligence officers. That lasted until Chen could take his instructions directly from his own handler.
The money trail is the clearest part of the case. In May 2022, the pair facilitated a secret cash payment of $10,000 from China. They told people in the US to leave the cash at a designated location for someone else to pick up, the arrangement known as a dead drop. They later carried out a second, similar operation involving $20,000. Together the payments came to at least $30,000, and the payments were tied to information related to US national security.
The scheme went beyond payments. Lai and Chen obtained photographs of a naval facility, of military recruits, and of active-duty sailors. Chen collected personal information about a US Navy employee. He also kept detailed biographical files on military personnel who were potential targets for intelligence recruitment.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A Eisenberg described the operation as "long-running," "extensive" and "brazen," and said it was meant to undermine US national security and support Chinese intelligence operations and recruitment inside the country.
The department's account leaves important questions open. It did not say how many times the pair facilitated payments, and it did not say how many people they successfully recruited in the US. The two payments described in court documents may therefore not be the full extent of what they did.
The sentencing comes amid a wider run of espionage tensions between Washington and Beijing. In late August, President Donald Trump said he knew China spied on the US, but added that "we spy on them too." In June, China announced it had arrested a US citizen accused of espionage, a day after US media reported that a scholar with dual US and Myanmar citizenship had been detained earlier that month. That scholar, Min Zin, had written opinion pieces on Myanmar politics critical of both the military government and the opposition groups fighting it.
With the guilty pleas entered and sentences handed down, the legal case against Lai and Chen is closed. What remains unanswered is how far their network reached and how many service members were approached.
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