{"id":485368,"date":"2026-10-05T03:02:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T03:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/485368\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T03:02:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T03:02:15","slug":"fbi-arrests-irvine-woman-accused-of-acting-as-chinese-agent-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/485368\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI arrests Irvine woman accused of acting as Chinese agent \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbclosangeles.com\/tag\/irvine\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Irvine<\/a> woman accused of acting as a Chinese agent was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday, federal officials said.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI took 34-year-old Wanying &#8220;Heather&#8221; Zhang into custody as she was attempting to leave for China, according to First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli.<\/p>\n<p>In 2025, Zhang allegedly went to Seattle and, following orders from Chinese officials, surveilled a Taiwanese government official&#8217;s close relative. Essayli said the affidavit indicates the surveillance included sending photos, videos and license plate information.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She coordinated the trip with an associate and used tradecraft to avoid detection,&#8221; the federal prosecutor said. &#8220;She never notified the Attorney General she was acting for a foreign government, a federal offense.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Zhang is expected to make her first appearance in federal court in LA on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Irvine woman accused of acting as a Chinese agent was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3552,48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-485368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-crime-and-courts","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}