Federal officials say Wanying Zhang was arrested at a Los Angeles airport on a charge of acting as an unregistered agent of China after alleged surveillance of a relative of Taiwan's president.
The FBI arrested Wanying Zhang, 34, of Irvine, California, on a charge of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, CNN and CBS News reported. CBS said agents took her into custody at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday before she boarded a flight to Shanghai.
A federal complaint alleged Zhang and another person flew from Las Vegas to Seattle on 1 September 2025 and waited outside a home in a rented black SUV, CNN reported, citing FBI Special Agent Kevin Holt. The FBI said on social media that the surveillance target was the son of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te and his family. CBS, citing law enforcement sources, named the target as Ting-Yu Lai.
CNN said the complaint alleged Chinese officials directed Zhang to gather information and take photographs. CBS reported that messages cited in the complaint, obtained through a search warrant on an iCloud account, included the lines "Saw him. Young male. It's that young one" and "I am videorecording," along with license-plate numbers.
The charge is an allegation. Neither CNN nor CBS reported a court plea in the initial accounts. China's government has long claimed Taiwan as its territory, a position Taipei rejects; the reporting framed the case in that political context.
The complaint was signed on Saturday, CNN reported. Further court appearances had not been detailed in the early accounts used for this brief.