LOS ANGELES — After the high-profile arrest Sunday at Los Angeles International Airport of a China-born real-estate agent accused of spying in Seattle on the family of Taiwan’s president, The Bureau found photographs placing her among members of an association linked to President Xi Jinping’s prior California visit, anti-Taiwan advocacy, and Beijing’s so-called United Front networks.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents stopped Wanying “Heather” Zhang, 34, of Irvine, at the airport as she prepared to board a flight to Shanghai, a day after Special Agent Kevin Holt swore out a 26-page affidavit charging her with acting as an unregistered agent of China.
The affidavit alleges that on September 1, 2025, Zhang and a companion flew to Seattle, parked a rented SUV outside the home of a close relative of a Taiwanese government official, and filmed him and his family as they arrived home.
“Saw him. Young male. It’s that young one,” she messaged a man the FBI describes as a Chinese government official, before sending him two license-plate numbers.
Law-enforcement sources told CBS News the target was Lai Ting-yu, the U.S.-based son of President Lai Ching-te. Holt wrote that Zhang attended Beijing’s University of International Relations, which he describes as “closely affiliated with China’s intelligence apparatus, specifically the Ministry of State Security.”
Holt’s affidavit casts the alleged Seattle surveillance operation against Beijing’s preparations for a possible war over Taiwan, carried out in this instance on American soil.
“In addition to modernizing its military, the PRC has embarked on coercive activities that go beyond normal diplomatic, economic, and security activities, which are meant to erode Taiwan’s will to fight a war against China,” he wrote.
Xi “has vowed to unify Taiwan with China,” Holt wrote, and is modernizing China’s armed forces “to retake Taiwan by force, if necessary.”
“If the PRC were to wish to obtain leverage over the President of Taiwan during any potential conflict,” Holt wrote, photographs and location information concerning the close relatives of a senior Taiwanese official “could be useful to the PRC.” He added that he knew of no possible commercial or personal benefit the surveillance would have for Zhang or her companion.
The group in which The Bureau has placed the suspect, a Southern California Chinese association, has also spent years among American politicians and Chinese diplomats.The Bureau has not established any link between the association and the operation Zhang is accused of carrying out.
A July 2024 report by the Hong Kong Democracy Council and Students for a Free Tibet identified that same association as one of the “united front groups that traveled from southern California to San Francisco” during Xi’s visit. One of its leaders publicly opposed President Tsai Ing-wen’s 2023 visit to the United States.
Bill Essayli, the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, said Zhang “used tradecraft to avoid detection.” The affidavit is built from her iCloud account, airline and rental-car records, and a neighbor’s home security camera in Washington state. It reconstructs the Seattle operation almost minute by minute.
Zhang and her companion, whom the government identifies only as Individual 1, flew from Las Vegas to Seattle on Alaska Airlines Flight 629. “Boarding now to Seattle,” she wrote to the official, and she sent him a photograph of her boarding pass taken on the jet bridge.
At 2:08 p.m. the pair rented a black Nissan Rogue at the airport. At about 4:50 p.m., according to the neighbor’s camera, they parked near the home and waited. At about 6 p.m. the president’s son came home, followed by family members, including children. The two sat up and raised their phones. While her companion took pictures, Zhang reclined her seat “as if to avoid being seen,” Holt wrote.