US jails two Chinese nationals for spying

Liren Lai and Yuance Chen admitted to facilitating ‘dead drop’ cash payments worth at least $30,000 to people in the US.Published On 31 Oct 202631 Oct 2026Two Chinese nationals have been jailed in the United States after admitting to trying to recruit US military service members to spy for Beijing.Liren “Ryan” Lai, 40, and Yuance Chen, 39, were each sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement on Friday.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Approval for China’s mega embassy in London was lawful, UK court ruleslist 2 of 3FBI investigates alleged theft of ‘very sensitive’ employee datalist 3 of 3Espionage threats blur lines between security and dissent in Iranend of listThe men sought to arrange “dead drop” cash payments in exchange for information related to US national security, the statement also said.The pair operated a “long-running”, “extensive” and “brazen” scheme to undermine US national security and support Chinese intelligence operations and recruitment in the US, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A Eisenberg said.According to court documents, Lai and Chen began act...