Two Chinese nationals, including a University of Michigan scholar, were arrested Tuesday for smuggling a noxious fungus into the United States in a case federal authorities are calling “agroterrorism.”

Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, are accused of smuggling Fusarium graminearum, a much-feared strain of fungus that causes “head blight,” a serious fungal disease affecting cereal crops like wheat, barley, maize, and rice. It causes billions of dollars in economic losses each year.

The fungus also produces a mycotoxin that can cause vomiting, liver damage, and birth defects in both humans and livestock. 

“The alleged actions of these Chinese nationals—including a loyal member of the Chinese Communist Party—are of the gravest national security concerns. These two aliens have been charged with smuggling a fungus that has been described as a ‘potential agroterrorism weapon’ into  the heartland of America, where they apparently intended to use a University of Michigan laboratory to further their scheme,” the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, James F. Gorgon, said in a statement.

The attorney did not elaborate on whether the couple’s “scheme” was simply to pursue their research together at a top American laboratory, or if there was a darker plot afoot. In a statement, the FBI director, Kash Patel, said China was seeking to damage the American food supply chain.

“This case is a sobering reminder that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is working around the clock to deploy operatives and researchers to infiltrate American institutions and target our food supply, which would have grave consequences … putting American lives and our economy at serious risk,” he wrote in a social media posting.

On July 27, 2024, Mr. Liu allegedly smuggled the biological pathogen on a Delta flight from Shanghai to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, where he told Border Patrol agents that he was there to visit Ms. Liu, his girlfriend, who was a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan, according to the criminal complaint. 

Border Patrol officers inspected Mr. Liu’s backpack and recovered a wad of crumpled-up tissues that “concealed a note in Chinese, a round piece of filter paper with a series of circles drawn on it, and four clear plastic baggies with small clumps of reddish plant material inside.”

Mr. Liu, who works as a researcher specializing in biological pathogens at Zhejiang University in China, told agents he did not know what the materials in his bag were, and claimed someone must have placed them there. 

Upon further questioning, Mr. Liu eventually confessed that the filter paper contained different strains of Fusarium graminearum, which he planned to clone and “make more samples if the experiments on the reddish plant material failed,” according to the complaint. Mr. Liu admitted he had stuffed the materials into a wad of tissues so he could slip them past Customs and continue his research on Fusarium graminearum at the University of Michigan’s Molecular Plant-Microbe Interaction Laboratory, where his girlfriend works and also researches the mycotoxin. 

Customs agents inspecting one of Mr. Liu’s two iPhones found in his WhatsApp a PDF file, titled “2018 Plant-Pathogen Warfare under Changing Climate Conditions,” which discusses Fusarium graminearum as “an example of a destructive disease and pathogen for crops,” according to the complaint.

Mr. Liu was denied entry to the United States and deported back to China. 

According to authorities, Ms. Jian, who had studied plant pathogens at Zhejiang University in China with Mr. Liu, had received $25,000 in funding from a Chinese foundation largely financed by the People’s Republic of China to continue her research on the mycotoxin.

FBI agents searching Ms. Jian’s phone found a “self-assessment” form signed by Ms. Jian in which she pledges loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. Agents also recovered conversations between Ms. Jian and a contact in China in which she requested to have samples of the mycotoxin mailed to her in Ann Arbor. On January 22, 2024, Customs and Border Protection Biological Threat Operations Specialists in Louisville intercepted and destroyed a package addressed to Ms. Jian that was sent from Zhejiang University that contained a statistics textbook with 15 samples of unknown material concealed inside.

In February, Ms. Jian was grilled by FBI agents about her boyfriend, and claimed she knew nothing about his plans to bring samples of Fusarium graminearum into the country. 

When asked if Mr. Liu had attempted to smuggle the materials for Ms. Jian’s use, the woman responded, “I don’t study on Fusarium.” 

A search of Mr. Liu’s WeChat messages recovered several conversations between the two leading up to his botched smuggling attempt in July 2024.

“Once this thing is done, everything else will be easy,” Mr. Liu wrote to Ms. Jian, according to the complaint. 

Ms. Jian’s WeChat conversations with Mr. Liu disclosed that in 2022, Ms. Jian had smuggled biological material on a flight from Seoul to San Francisco International Airport. There are no records of Ms. Jian declaring the importation of biological materials.

Ms. Jian appeared in federal court in Detroit on Tuesday afternoon to face charges of conspiracy, smuggling, and making false statements. 

This is the second federal criminal case involving a Chinese national and the University of Michigan in less than a week. Haoxiang Gao, a 19-year-old student and Green Card holder, is accused of lying about his citizenship in his voter registration application and of unlawfully voting in the 2024 presidential election. Mr. Gao fled the country on a flight to Shanghai on January 18, according to authorities.