The FBI arrested 34-year-old Wanying “Heather” Zhang at Los Angeles International Airport on a charge of acting as an unregistered foreign-government agent. The surveillance allegations are set out in a criminal complaint and have not been tested at trial.
The FBI arrested California realtor Wanying “Heather” Zhang at Los Angeles International Airport as she prepared to board a flight to Shanghai. She is charged with acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. Investigators say the case concerns alleged surveillance of the son of Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te.
A federal criminal complaint filed on October 3, 2026, alleges that Zhang and an unidentified man travelled to the Seattle area on September 1, 2025, and photographed the home of a Taiwanese official’s family. Security-camera images included in the complaint allegedly show the pair filming the president’s adult son, his wife and child as they arrived home. This article omits the family’s address and other private details.
The FBI says messages recovered from Zhang’s iCloud account indicated contact with at least two people she appeared to understand were Chinese government officials. The affidavit alleges that one official assigned her a surveillance task after a meeting in China in June 2025. Investigators say the messages were obtained under a search warrant.
Zhang, 34, is a licensed California real-estate agent. CBS News reported that it was not clear whether she had retained a lawyer. The allegations come from the criminal complaint and remain unproven in court. No finding of guilt has been reported.
The case is unfolding amid tensions between Beijing and Taipei. Taiwan governs itself, while China claims the island as part of its territory. The FBI complaint says information about a senior Taiwanese official’s close relatives could be useful to Beijing in a potential conflict. That is the government’s stated theory, not a judicial finding about Zhang’s intent.