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A federal judge on Friday sentenced two Chinese nationals to prison for operating an intelligence-collection scheme aimed at U.S. military personnel and civilian employees on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security, the Department of Justice said. Liren “Ryan” Lai, 40, and Yuance Chen, 39, were each given 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to conspiring to act as agents of a foreign government without notifying the attorney general, court filings show.
Sentences, charges and government statement
U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, an appointee of President Barack Obama, handed down the sentences, the DOJ said in a press release. The men pleaded guilty within the past year to the charge of conspiracy to act as agents of a foreign government without prior notification to the attorney general, according to court filings cited by the Justice Department.
“These defendants were directed by a foreign intelligence service to gather information about the U.S. military in the hopes of undermining our national security,” U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Craig Missakian said in the DOJ release. “This office and our federal law enforcement partners stand watch day and night to prevent our adversaries from doing just that, and we will continue to do so. There are many nations around the world that wish this country ill, and today’s sentences should demonstrate our commitment to holding accountable anyone who poses a similar threat to our nation.”
Alleged activities and targets
The Justice Department says Lai, who resides in China, traveled to the United States multiple times on visitor visas and recruited Chen to work with Chinese intelligence officials. Chen, who has been a lawful permanent resident of the United States since his 2019 marriage to a U.S. citizen, is accused of developing intelligence assets and facilitating covert cash payments known as “dead drops,” the DOJ said.
According to the department, the pair helped arrange a clandestine payment of roughly $10,000 in 2022 by placing the cash in a backpack stored in a locker at a recreational facility in Livermore, California. The DOJ also alleges a separate $20,000 dead drop in a San Francisco location in 2024 by an unnamed co‑conspirator, and another $20,000 drop in a parking garage in Phoenix after Lai returned to the U.S. in 2025.
The agency says Chen collected identifying and biographical information on Navy civilian employees, photographed U.S. Navy installations in Bremerton, Washington, and took pictures of sailors and recruits at Navy recruiting stations in Southern California. Many of those recruits reportedly listed hometowns in China, the DOJ said. Chen later attempted to contact and recruit some of the Navy employees as intelligence assets, according to court documents cited by prosecutors.
Investigation timeline and arrests
The DOJ’s filings state Lai and Chen acted as agents of the Ministry of State Security going back at least to May 2021, and that elements of the operation can be traced as far back as 2015. The department said both men were arrested in an FBI operation in June 2025.
Prosecutors identified two additional unnamed co‑conspirators in the indictment, as well as multiple unnamed Chinese intelligence officers and assets said to be part of the broader operation, the DOJ said. Attorneys for Lai and Chen did not respond to requests for comment, the report notes.
The sentences conclude the criminal case brought by federal prosecutors in the Northern District of California, which characterized the scheme as a directed effort by a foreign intelligence service to collect information on U.S. military personnel and facilities. All specific allegations and timeline details in this report are drawn from the Department of Justice press release and court filings cited by prosecutors.
