A Chinese researcher who smuggled a crop-killing fungus dubbed “vomitoxin” into the US has been deported, officials announced Monday.
Yunqing Jian, 33, who once worked for the University of Michigan, pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to smuggle the biological pathogen into the States, reportedly to continue researching it, and then lying to the FBI about her actions. She was sentenced to time served — then booted.
FBI Director Dan Bongino confirmed Monday in a post on X that Jian has been kicked out of the country after her conviction.
“Yunqing Jian, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, pleaded guilty to charges of smuggling a DANGEROUS biological pathogen into our country and then lying about it to FBI agents, and was DEPORTED,” Bongino wrote.
“The FBI will not stand by and allow our foreign adversaries to exploit our top-notch university facilities in furtherance of their agendas.”
Jian was arrested in June for allegedly plotting with her boyfriend Zungyong Liu to bring into the US the fungus, called Fusarium graminearum, which causes “head blight” that kills wheat, barley, maize and rice.
The fungus is nicknamed “vomitoxin” for its effect also causing livestock to throw up. It can cause other issues, too, such diarrhea, stomach pain, headaches and fevers in both animals and people.
Jian, a loyal member of the Chinese Communist Party, had received funding from her home country to research the fungus, prosecutors said.
Liu, 34, worked at a Chinese university that was studying the pathogen when he brought some in his backpack on a flight into the US, through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, so he could research it further at the University of Michigan where Jian was working.
But Liu was turned away at the airport in July and sent back to China when he was found to be carrying a suspicious red plant material in his backpack.
Messages the couple exchanged in 2024 suggest that Jian was already working with the fungus at the Michigan lab before Liu was caught trying to come in with it.
The fungus grows in the US in places in the East and Upper Midwest and is responsible for an estimated loss of $200 million to $400 million in destroyed agriculture each year.
It’s not uncommon for researchers to bring plants, animals and strains of fungus from other countries into the US but they have to get a permit first.
Jian’s lawyer, Norman Zalkind, told The Post Monday that his client was sent back to China two days after she entered her guilty plea and said the feds blew her crimes out of proportion.
“They shouldn’t have brought these kinds of cases, they are not serious cases,” Zalkind said.
“The administration made them much more serious than they really are. They said their research was really harmful to the US, but it wasn’t.”
At least four other Chinese nationals have been similarly charged with trying to sneak into the country biological materials for research at the University of Michigan.
