After deboarding his international flight in Detroit in July 2024, a Chinese molecular biologist headed to the U.S. Customs area.
There, officers discovered something strange in Liu Zunyong’s bags—a wad of crumpled-up tissue in a small pocket of his backpack, according to a federal criminal complaint.
The tissue concealed a note in Chinese, a round piece of filter paper with a series of circles drawn on it, and four clear plastic bags containing small reddish plant material, the complaint states.
Officers asked Liu, who told them he was visiting his girlfriend in the United States on a B-2 tourist visa, what the objects were....
