
In January 2022, someone left a backpack in a locker at a recreation center in Livermore, California. Inside was about $10,000 in cash, sent by China's Ministry of State Security, Beijing's spy agency. The men picking it up were working for China.
Their job was to hunt American sailors.
Liren "Ryan" Lai, 40, and Yuance Chen, 39, are both Chinese nationals. Chen was living here legally on a green card. By May 2021 at the latest, the two were working for the MSS. Lai recruited Chen and passed along orders from their handlers in China until Chen started taking assignments directly.
Those assignments were about the United States Navy. Chen photographed Navy Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Washington, which is home to some of the submarines that carry America's nuclear missiles. He walked into a Navy recruiting station in Southern California and took photos and video of recruits and sailors inside. He collected personal information on a Navy employee and kept files on military personnel whom investigators called "potential intelligence targets."
According to the FBI, Chen also tried to recruit American service members to work for China.
Spy agencies don't usually start by stealing secrets. They start by finding people who have access to them. Photos of a base, video of new recruits, and personal files on sailors are what they use to work out which American might be bought, pressured, or blackmailed.
China paid well for the work. Lai gave Chen a phone in 2023 for secret communication with the MSS. Chen flew to China in 2024 and again in 2025 to meet his handlers in person. In May 2025, Chinese intelligence sent Lai to Phoenix to deliver about $20,000 more in cash.
The FBI arrested both men in June 2025. Lai pleaded guilty in December, and Chen pleaded guilty in February. Each pleaded to conspiring to act as an agent of China and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. That second charge alone carries up to 10 years in prison.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, an Obama appointee, gave each of them 30 months.
That's two and a half years for four years of work for Beijing's spy service, including photographing a nuclear submarine base, filming recruits, and trying to turn American sailors. With good behavior, they could be out before the next presidential election.
The prosecutors and investigators did their part. The FBI ran the case with help from Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigators. "The Chinese government underestimated" the bureau's commitment, said Roman Rozhavsky, who heads the FBI's counterintelligence division. U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian said his office and its partners "stand watch day and night" to stop enemies from targeting the military.
The sentence still came out short. A man caught selling enough drugs can get a mandatory five years in federal prison. These two scouted American sailors for China's spy service and got half that.
China has said it wants a military that can beat America's. Spy agencies like the MSS are how it plans to find out what it's up against, and right now the price for getting caught is 30 months.


Comments are closed.