A federal indictment was unsealed yesterday revealing charges against Ping Li, a 59-year-old resident of Wesley Chapel, Florida, accused of operating as a clandestine agent for the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as per an announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice. Li, who faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted, is charged with both conspiring to act as and acting as a foreign agent without prior notification to the Attorney General. The indictment outlines a collusion with the PRC's Ministry of State Security (MSS), a civilian intelligence entity that commonly leverages contacts overseas to further its intelligence objectives, ranging from acquiring corporate secrets to monitoring PRC dissidents abroad.
The indictment asserts that Li, a U.S. citizen originally from the PRC, had been employed at a major American telecommunications company and an international information technology firm, during which time he was instructed by the MSS to gather and relay information back to China, since as far back as 2012 and Li used a series of anonymous online accounts to communicate with MSS officers, and he also traveled to China for in-person meetings with them. In one instance noted by the Department of Justice, Li was asked to provide details on individuals associated with Falun Gong—a spiritual practice banned and heavily repressed in China—residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and he supplied this information less than a week following the request.
Throughout his tenure working for the telecommunications company and later the IT company, Li was tasked with transferring sensitive material such as the details about his employers’ operations in China, cybersecurity training documents, and information on hacking incidents which included a notable hack of a U.S. company purported to be orchestrated by the Chinese government; to illustrate, in August 2012, Li was solicited to hand over data on Falun Gong practitioners and in May 2021, information regarding a major U.S. company's hacking case was sent by Li within mere days of the request.
Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen, Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells of the FBI's National Security Branch, and U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg from the Middle District of Florida were the officials who announced the case, with the FBI spearheading the ongoing investigation, Li's alleged clandestine activities indicate a breach of the trust vested in him as a corporate employee and as a citizen of the United States, the responsibility of the prosecutors—Assistant U.S. Attorneys Daniel J. Marcet and Karyna Valdes of the Middle District of Florida along with Trial Attorney Scott Claffee of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section—remains to present the gravity of these accusations before the court where Li will have an opportunity to respond to the charges set against him.
While the indictment marks a grave allegation, it must be stressed that under U.S. law, an indictment is not proof of guilt. As the legal process unfolds, Li is presumed innocent until proven guilty by the court. The Justice Department's full statement can be read on their website.
