DETROIT — Another Chinese national has been arrested, charged with smuggling biological samples into the United States to work on them at the University of Michigan.
Chengxuan Han is the third student to be accused of illegally sending biological samples to the country.
She is charged with smuggling goods into the U.S. and making false statements, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Officials said Han is a doctoral student at the College of Life Science and Technology at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China.
She is accused of sending four packages from China to the U.S. with concealed biological matter, addressed to someone connected to a lab at the University of Michigan.
The names of those Han sent the samples to have not been released, the Free Press reported.
She allegedly sent four containers with a nematode-growing medium to grow nematodes in petri dishes in 2024 and 2025, Michigan Live reported. Nematodes are a type of roundworm.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers stopped Han at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on June 8.
She was traveling on a J1 visa. The visa allows foreign nationals to come to the U.S. for educational and cultural exchange programs, Michigan Live reported.
She is accused of lying to agents about the packages she sent, but eventually told the FBI that she had sent the packages that had biological material related to roundworms.
U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon called Han’s case “part of an alarming pattern that threatens our security,” WWJ reported.
Chinese doctoral student Yunqing Jian was arrested while her boyfriend Zunyong Liu was charged in connection with a conspiracy to smuggle a biological pathogen into the U.S. Jian was researching a fungus that is considered an agroterrorism weapon and attacks grain crops. It can also cause vomiting, liver damage and reproductive problems in livestock and humans, CNN reported.
Jian is being held without bond. Liu had already returned to China and is not in custody, The Detroit News reported. He was denied entry into the U.S. and sent back to China in an expedited removal process, the Free Press reported.
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