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Chinese Gov Employee Charged For Fraudulently Getting U.S. Visas For “Chinese Researchers”
[Sara Carter] WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice announced Tuesday the arrest of Zhongsan Liu. He was charged in a complaint for his involvement in a conspiracy to fraudulently obtain U.S. visas for Chinese government employees. Liu was arrested today in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and presented this afternoon in Manhattan federal court before the U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang.“We welcome foreign students and researchers, including from China, but we do not welcome visa fraud – especially on behalf of a government,” said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers of National Security. “We will continue to confront Chinese government attempts to subvert American law to advance its own interests in diverting U.S. research and know-how to China.” “As alleged Zhongsan Liu conspired to obtain research scholar visas fraudulently for people whose actual purpose was not research but recruitment,” said U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman. “Rather than helping to bring students to the U.S., Liu allegedly conspired to defraud this country’s visa system to advance his efforts to attract U.S. experts to China. Thanks to the FBI, this alleged abuse of the visa system has been halted.” “Zhongsan Liu broke the law by seeking visas for employees of the government of The People’s Republic of China to enter the United States under false pretenses. Individuals obtained visas under the guise of research scholars, but in reality their assignment was to recruit top U.S. talent to benefit the government of China,” said Assistant Director John Brown of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. “The FBI recognizes the immense benefit of academic freedom in our open society, and we will investigate those who break our laws in an effort to take advantage of that freedom.” “The allegation that an employee of a foreign government has worked to mask the true purpose of an individual’s presence in the United States isn’t news to the FBI,” said FBI Assistant Director William F. Sweeney Jr. “This alleged behavior should be another alarm bell that foreign governments are constantly working to exploit research work being conducted throughout the United States. Not everyone shares the honest goal of conducting open research to benefit society as a whole. This case is another example of the pervasive and organized effort, in this instance an allegedly flat-out illegal one, to fulfill a top priority of collecting information to advantage a foreign adversary. Putting a halt to Mr. Liu’s alleged actions are an important and significant step to highlighting these activities. The FBI New York, along with our intelligence community partners, will continue to disrupt the behavior when it is detected.” Posted by: Skidmark 2019-09-21 |
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