Sections Introduction I. The United Front Work Department: Architecture of Influence II. UFWD Operations on American Soil III. The Prosecutions: Who Got Caught and How IV. Why Prosecution Was Possible: The Legal Framework V. The Challenges That Remain Appendix A: References

III. The Prosecutions: Who Got Caught and How

The following case studies represent a cross-section of successful federal prosecutions arising from CCP influence and espionage operations in the United States. Each case is drawn from public court records, DOJ press releases, and reporting based on unclassified materials.

United States v. Charles Lieber (D. Mass., 2021) | Convicted — 6 counts

Charles Lieber, Chair of Harvard University's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, was convicted in December 2021 on charges of making false statements to federal investigators and failing to file required financial disclosures about his participation in the Thousand Talents Program. Lieber had signed a contract with Wuhan University of Technology in 2011 that paid him approximately $50,000 per month plus $158,000 per year in living expenses — in addition to his Harvard salary — while he concealed these payments from Harvard, the Department of Defense, and the National Institutes of Health, which funded his research with more than $15 million in grants. The charges did not allege that he transferred classified information — the prosecution rested on concealment and false statements, a deliberate charging strategy that simplified the evidentiary burden. Lieber was sentenced in April 2023 (U.S. Department of Justice, 2021a).

United States v. Yanjun Xu (S.D. Ohio, 2021) | Convicted — first MSS officer extradited and convicted in US history

Yanjun Xu was a Deputy Division Director of the MSS's Sixth Bureau — a senior Chinese intelligence officer. He was arrested in Belgium in 2018 at the request of US authorities and extradited — a significant diplomatic and legal achievement, as China does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, and no MSS officer had previously been extradited to face US prosecution. Xu had targeted engineers at GE Aviation and other aerospace companies, using the cover of an academic conference to recruit insiders who would provide technical documents on advanced turbofan engine technology. He was convicted in November 2021 under the Economic Espionage Act and the Espionage Act and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison (U.S. Department of Justice, 2021b).

United States v. Baimadajie Angwang (E.D.N.Y., 2020) | Charged — 18 U.S.C. § 951

Baimadajie Angwang was a New York Police Department officer and US Army Reserve soldier who was charged in 2020 with acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government under 18 U.S.C. § 951. The indictment alleged that Angwang, a Tibetan-American, reported to the Chinese Consulate in New York City on the activities of Tibetan-American community members and sought to identify and recruit informants within the Tibetan diaspora on behalf of Chinese government handlers. The case illustrates the UFWD's targeting of ethnic minority diaspora communities and the willingness to recruit individuals holding US law enforcement and military positions as covert assets (U.S. Department of Justice, 2020).

Operation Fox Hunt: United States v. Michael McMahon et al. (D.N.J., 2022) | Convicted

Michael McMahon, a former New York City police detective, and two others were convicted in 2022 for conducting covert surveillance and harassment of a Chinese-American political activist at the direction of Chinese government officials, as part of an Operation Fox Hunt effort to force the individual to return to China. McMahon and his co-defendants conducted physical surveillance, gathered personal information about the target and the target's family, and delivered the information to Chinese officials — all without registering as foreign agents. The case established that Fox Hunt-style operations could be prosecuted under § 951 even when the target had not committed any crime in China and the "persuasion" was directed at a US resident (U.S. Department of Justice, 2022).

United States v. Jin Tao Mak (C.D. Cal., 2007) | Convicted — 24.5 years

Chi Mak and his brother Tai Mak, along with Chi Mak's wife and nephew, were convicted in a case that illustrated the long-term, patient character of MSS human intelligence operations. Chi Mak, a defense contractor engineer employed by Power Paragon, had spent over two decades as a sleeper agent, passing technical documents on US Navy quiet-drive propulsion systems, amplifiers, and power-conditioning systems to Chinese intelligence. The documents were destined for China's submarine program. Mak was convicted under the Espionage Act and received the longest sentence to that point — 24.5 years — for a non-violent espionage offense (U.S. Department of Justice, 2008).