Two Chinese nationals were each sentenced Friday to 30 months in prison for working for China’s intelligence service to gather U.S. military information and help recruit service members as intelligence sources.
Liren “Ryan” Lai, 40, and Yuance Chen, 39, acted under the direction of China’s Ministry of State Security. Each also received three years of supervised release for conspiring to act and acting as agents of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. Attorney General, according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) statement.
The FBI arrested Chen in Happy Valley, Oregon, and Lai in Houston on June 27.
The DOJ said the pair carried out clandestine intelligence activities, including facilitating secret “dead drop” cash payments in exchange for information related to U.S. national security. Intelligence operatives use “dead drops” to transfer money or information without directly meeting the intended recipient.
The department said the two also gathered information about U.S. military personnel and installations and helped recruit potential intelligence assets from within the U.S. military.
“Lai’s and Chen’s activities, undertaken at the direction of the PRC, were extensive and brazen,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
“The National Security Division is committed to holding accountable anyone who aids or abets such espionage efforts,” he said.
U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian for the Northern District of California said the defendants’ actions were done to undermine U.S. national security.
“There are many nations around the world that wish this country ill,” Missakian said. “And today’s sentences should demonstrate our commitment to holding accountable anyone who poses a similar threat to our nation.”
In response to the pair’s sentencing, Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division said that the Chinese regime’s efforts to infiltrate the U.S. military “demonstrate just how far it will go to threaten U.S. national security.”
Federal charging documents said Chen first entered the United States on a tourist visa in 2015 and later obtained conditional permanent-resident status after marrying a U.S. citizen in 2022. That year, he and an associate identified in the complaint as “Associate #1,” described as his wife, traveled to Washington state and photographed restricted areas of Naval Base Kitsap.
The complaint further alleges that Chen was tasked with photographing a Navy recruiting station in San Gabriel, California. While there, he and “Associate #1” photographed boards displaying new recruits’ full names, hometowns, training programs, and recruiter information.
Prosecutors noted that a majority of the recruits shown listed “China” as their hometown, and the photos were later passed to a person believed to be an officer of the PRC’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) as part of an effort to spot potential recruitment targets.
Lai, who entered the country through Houston in April 2025 on a visitor visa, was accused of recruiting Chen to work for the MSS in 2021.
In January 2022, while both men were in China, they allegedly arranged for a backpack containing at least $10,000 in cash to be left in a day-use locker at a recreational facility in Livermore, California, as a covert payment on behalf of the MSS.
According to the complaint, the MSS also coached Chen on how to approach U.S. service members, what compensation to mention, which Navy billets were of interest, and how to reduce the risk of exposure.
Chen is said to have contacted an unnamed Navy employee through social media, arranged a tour of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in San Diego, and then shared that individual’s details with his MSS contact.
The DOJ said that in March 2023, Lai traveled to the United States and delivered a cell phone to Chen for covert communications with the MSS.
Chen later traveled to the Chinese city of Guangzhou in April 2024 and again in March 2025 to meet MSS officers and discuss payment for his work. In May 2025, the MSS directed him to Phoenix to facilitate another clandestine cash transfer of roughly $20,000.
Lai’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times, and an attorney for Chen could not be reached.
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