Chinese couple charged with smuggling a biological pathogen into the U.S.

Yunqing Jian, a researcher at the University of Michigan, and her boyfriend, Zunyong Liu, studied the pathogen as university students in China.

A Chinese researcher in Michigan and her boyfriend have been charged with smuggling a biological pathogen that “can cause devastating diseases in crops” into the United States, according to federal charging documents unsealed Tuesday.

Yunqing Jian, 33, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, and her boyfriend, Zunyong Liu, 34, were charged with multiple counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, smuggling goods into the country and making false statements to investigators, the complaint says.

Liu was entering the country at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in July when border officers found the pathogen, a fungus known as Fusarium graminearum, in his backpack, according to the complaint. The small clumps of reddish plant material were discovered in four plastic baggies tucked into a wad of tissues.

U.S. District CourtLiu and his girlfriend researched the pathogen as university students in China, the complaint says. Since 2023, Jian had been working at the University of Michigan’s Molecular Plant-Microbe Interaction Laboratory.

Liu initially told the officers that he did not know what the materials were and that someone must have planted them in his bag, but he then told a different story, the complaint says.