Overview
- He pleaded guilty to smuggling and was sentenced to more than four months in federal prison with a $500 fine, one year of supervised release, a court‑ordered removal to China, and a revoked J‑1 visa.
- E. coli DNA was concealed in a shipment from China to his Bloomington home that was falsely declared as women’s underwear in March 2024.
- The FBI’s Indianapolis office flagged unusual shipments to Indiana University affiliates in late 2025, and Customs officers at Chicago O’Hare detained him that November when he admitted the mislabeling.
- Prosecutors said he exploited a USDA‑funded grant to bring in the material, and they told the court they found evidence of Chinese Communist Party membership and false statements to immigration authorities.
- E. coli is widely used in labs, yet U.S. law requires permits for imports because certain strains or genetic material can threaten public health or agriculture, signaling closer scrutiny of foreign‑linked research and cross‑border biological shipments.