A Chinese scholar has been arrested after she was caught trying to smuggle a biological pathogen into the United States to be used for an “agricultural terrorism” attack.
Yunqing Jian, a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan, was arrested and charged with attempting to smuggle a highly dangerous biological pathogen into the United States.
The fungus is capable of crippling U.S. agriculture and posing serious threats to human and animal health, federal prosecutors revealed this week.
According to documents unsealed Tuesday in federal court, Jian, a researcher originally from China, and her boyfriend, Zunyong Liu, face federal charges after attempting to bring Fusarium graminearum into the U.S. last July.
The fungus that devastates staple crops like wheat, rice, barley, and corn.
“These two aliens have been charged with smuggling a fungus that has been described as a ‘potential agroterrorism weapon’ into the heartland of America,” said U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon, Jr., warning of the “gravest national security concerns.”
“They apparently intended to use a University of Michigan laboratory to further their scheme,” he added, identifying at least one of the suspects as a loyal member of the Chinese Communist Party.
The dangerous fungus, which causes “head blight”