Scientist accused of aiding China
The FBI arrested the chair of Harvard University’s chemistry department, accusing him of lying about his work for a Chinese university, and charged two others who worked in the Boston area with aiding China’s efforts to steal scientific research, officials announced Tuesday.
Charles Lieber, the Harvard professor, lied to Defense Department investigators when they questioned him in April 2018, according to court papers. He claimed in the interview that he had never been asked to participate in China’s research program called the Thousand Talents Plan, designed to attract top-flight academics and experts to work in China, the documents say.
U.S. officials said Lieber signed a contract years earlier to do work for the Wuhan Institute of Technology in China, making as much as $50,000 a month from the school in addition to a living allowance and grant money.
Lieber, 60, was under contract as part of the Thousand Talents Plan from 2012 to 2017, according to a criminal complaint. As the recipient of federal grant money, Lieber was required to disclose to the government any significant foreign financial conflicts of interest, including payments from foreign entities.
An expert in nanotechnology, Lieber was arrested Tuesday morning. Harvard said that he has been placed on leave.
“The government is now expecting perfect compliance for scientists who received no training on how these forms needed to
Charles Lieber claimed that he had never been asked to participate in China’s research program called the Thousand Talents Plan, designed to attract top-flight academics and experts to work in China.
be filled out and no warnings about the dangers of submitting an inaccurate form,” said Peter Zeidenberg, a lawyer who has represented Chinese Americans accused of espionage. “Treating these mistakes as felonies is entirely inappropriate.”
Separately, the Justice Department charged Yanqing Ye, a student at Boston University’s departments of physics, chemistry and biomedical engineering, with lying on her visa application and failing to disclose that she was a lieutenant in China’s People’s Liberation Army. FBI agents found evidence that she was carrying out tasks for her military superiors, such as conducting research, assessing U.S. military websites and sending U.S. documents to China.
Ye, 29, was charged with visa fraud, false statements and acting as an agent of a foreign government. She is in China.
The third case announced Tuesday was against Zaosong Zheng, who worked as a cancer researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston from 2018 to 2019. Zheng, 30, is accused of trying to smuggle 21 vials of biological research material back to China in a sock in his luggage. He was arrested last month on charges of smuggling and making false statements.