Waterloo Student Charged After Admitting He Photographed U.S. Planes for Chinese Contact

A university student who crossed into the United States nearly two dozen times over the past four years is now facing federal charges after admitting he was paid to photograph American aircraft and send the images to a contact in China. Weiheng Zeng, a Chinese national studying at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, was charged with making false statements following an investigation that began with grainy surveillance footage at a Chicago airport and ended with hours of questioning at a border crossing outside Detroit.

According to The Detroit News, Zeng drove a dark blue Chrysler Town & Country into Detroit via the Ambassador Bridge on April 11, 2026, then continued on to Chicago, where he told authorities he and two companions were making a one-day trip. Investigators say he re-entered Canada through the Windsor-Detroit tunnel on April 23. Federal agents later identified him after surveillance footage at Chicago O'Hare International Airport captured his vehicle entering a FedEx employee lot, where a man climbed a parked forklift to take photos toward aircraft and tried to open locked trailers, according to 404 Media.

Per The Detroit News report, American law enforcement matched the license plate on Zeng's vehicle to the one recorded at the FedEx lot, where he had lingered for about 20 minutes. He also allegedly trespassed at a FedEx facility at Toronto Pearson Airport and a separate FedEx employee lot near O'Hare. When Zeng attempted to re-enter the United States via the Ambassador Bridge on Sunday, accompanied by his sister and a classmate, border patrol agents and the FBI questioned him three separate times over several hours before a federal complaint was filed in Detroit's federal court yesterday.

A Contact Made Through an Online Forum

Zeng told investigators he met a Chinese contact through an online aviation forum in late 2024 and came to suspect the person was an employee of the Chinese government, the Detroit News reported. FBI agents later determined that the online forum Zeng described did not appear to exist. Over roughly 18 months, Zeng said he received the Chinese equivalent of about $500 total for his work, including $20 to $30 for photos of specific planes.

The contact requested photos of a United Airlines plane featuring a unique temporary paint scheme and also solicited additional photography missions near airports in Orlando, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles, according to court records cited by 404 Media. Zeng said he did not accept those western U.S. assignments, telling investigators he only completed two tasks over the 18-month period. The contact also asked him for information about flight freight logistics and bus and train routes, the same court records show.

Investigators found photos on Zeng's phone that included images of aircraft, some described as military equipment, along with pictures of people in tactical clothing and formations holding rifle-style firearms. Zeng told authorities the weapons in those photos were airsoft guns and that he had also photographed model aircraft he tracked for a flight radar website, according to the Detroit News.

Burner Phones and Burned SIM Cards

Court documents show the contact instructed Zeng to communicate exclusively using a Chinese-manufactured Huawei mobile phone and directed him to delete messages and regularly destroy used SIM cards by burning them with a lighter, per 404 Media. The contact reportedly sent Zeng a new SIM card every four or five months, along with an image of a badge bearing Tiananmen Square and the Chinese five-star symbol, as well as videos of scenes that only security officials would typically access.

Zeng held a B1/B2 visa issued in 2022 and had entered the United States around 24 times since then, according to the Detroit News. He is charged with making false statements, an offense that carries statutory penalties of up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, prosecutors must prove a defendant knowingly and willfully made a material misrepresentation to federal officials, a legal standard explained by legal analysts at Strom Law.

Part of a Broader Pattern Along the Border and Beyond

Zeng's case echoes other recent incidents involving Chinese nationals and unauthorized aviation photography in the United States. In April 2026, a Glasgow student was arrested at JFK after federal authorities accused him of taking telephoto photos of military aircraft near Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska; that student, Tianrui Liang, said the photos were for a personal hobby collection and was charged under a different statute, 18 U.S.C. § 795.

Federal prosecutors have leaned on false-statement charges repeatedly in similar cases even when formal espionage charges are not filed. In August 2026, Chinese national Qilin Wu was sentenced to six months in federal prison after pleading guilty in Missouri to photographing Whiteman Air Force Base, home to the Air Force's B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, according to reporting reviewed by the Miltary.com. And in Michigan specifically, federal prosecutors in the Eastern District charged five former University of Michigan students in October 2024 with false statements and conspiracy after they were caught taking late-night photos near military equipment at Camp Grayling during joint U.S.-Taiwan training exercises, as reported by the Michigan Public.

That Camp Grayling investigation had lasting fallout beyond the courtroom. University of Michigan President Santa Ono announced in January 2025 that the school would terminate its academic partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University over national security concerns, according to CBS News Detroit. Detroit-based federal prosecutors have also pursued a string of unrelated cases involving false statements at the border, including charges filed in June 2025 against two Chinese citizens accused of smuggling a regulated crop pathogen through Detroit Metro Airport, and charges against three additional Chinese research scholars in November 2025 over concealed biological material shipments.

Whether Zeng fully understood the intelligence implications of his photography assignments or viewed them simply as paid freelance work remains an open question in the case, reflecting a broader challenge federal investigators face in distinguishing witting foreign-agent activity from immigration and false-statement violations. The federal complaint against Zeng was filed in Detroit's federal court on Aug. 26.