A Southern California real estate agent was arrested at LAX on Sunday on allegations she secretly worked for Beijing, monitoring the US-based son of Taiwan's president. Federal agents took 34-year-old Wanying "Heather" Zhang into custody as she prepared to board a flight to Shanghai, charging her with acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, according to an FBI complaint. Prosecutors say Zhang and an unidentified man flew to Seattle in September 2025 under the direction of individuals she believed worked for the Chinese government, and filmed the suburban home and family of a target identified by CBS News as Ting-Yu Lai, the son of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te.
A neighbor's surveillance camera captured Zhang as she watched the man, his wife, and their child, at home, prosecutors say, per KTLA. Messages recovered from her iCloud account allegedly show her sending videos, photos, and license plate numbers to her contacts. She allegedly connected with those individuals through a former classmate of Beijing's University of International Relations, which the FBI has linked to China's Ministry of State Security. Prosecutors allege she was given the surveillance assignment during a visit to China in June 2025. She's due in court in Los Angeles on Monday. Taiwan has since thanked the US for acting against "such barbaric conduct"—a "typical case of transnational repression," per the Guardian.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
