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A federal court in California on Friday sentenced two Chinese nationals to 30 months in prison each for acting as agents of China's Ministry of State Security, the US Department of Justice said. Liren "Ryan" Lai, 40, and Yuance Chen, 39, also received three years of supervised release.
Both men pleaded guilty to two counts: conspiring to act as agents of a foreign government without notifying the Attorney General, and acting as such agents without notice. Lai entered his plea on December 12, 2025, and Chen followed on February 20, 2026. FBI agents arrested the pair on June 27, 2025, and a federal grand jury in the Northern District of California indicted them on July 1.
Court documents say the two worked for the Ministry of State Security no later than May 2021. Lai recruited Chen and first acted as the go-between. Chen later took assignments directly from ministry officers.
In January 2022, they arranged a roughly $10,000 cash dead drop, with the money left in a backpack in a locker at a recreational facility in Livermore, California. The Department of Justice said Chen began gathering information on US military sites and personnel that year. He took photographs of Navy Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Washington, and photos and video of recruits and sailors at a Navy recruiting station in Southern California.
Chen also collected personal information on a Navy employee and compiled biographical files on people considered potential intelligence targets. In March 2023, Lai handed him a cell phone for covert contact with the ministry. Chen traveled to China in 2024 and 2025, where he met ministry officers and received further assignments about US service members.
Lai returned to the United States in spring 2025 at the ministry's direction. He traveled to Phoenix in April and May to help deliver a payment of roughly $20,000 in cash, according to the Justice Department.
The FBI's San Francisco Field Office led the investigation, with support from FBI offices in Portland, Houston and San Diego and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California prosecuted the case. Local outlet Contra Costa Herald reported that US Attorney Craig Missakian said the men were directed by a foreign intelligence service to collect information about the US military. EconoTimes also reported the sentences.
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