A Chinese national claiming to conduct research as a “visiting scholar” at a prestigious Michigan university now finds herself facing a long prison term after pleading no contest this week to three smuggling charges and making false statements to federal officers.
Chengxuan Han, also a Ph.D. candidate at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, pleaded no contest this week in a Detroit federal court to sending four packages from China containing concealed biological materials to colleagues working in a University of Michigan laboratory.
The incident is the most recent criminal case involving Chinese students possessing potential hazardous biological materials at the University of Michigan (U-M).
As Breitbart News reported, in June the U.S. Attorney’s office in Michigan brought criminal charges against two other Chinese nationals loyal to the Chinese Communist Party for allegedly smuggling into a U-M research lab a fungus that could devastate American crops — biomaterial classified as “a potential agroterrorism weapon.”
Also, the Department of Education announced last month a foreign funding investigation into U-M — a school considered “New Ivy” for offering an Ivy League-level education — citing “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in its foreign reports and pointing to its history of ties to China.
In the recent Han case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Michigan’s Eastern District stated:
On June 8, 2025, Han arrived at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport on a J1 visa. Customs and Border Protection officers conducted an inspection of Han, during which Han made false statements about the packages and the biological materials she had previously shipped to the United States…At the conclusion of the border inspection, Han was interviewed by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and ICE HSI. During this interview, Han admitted to sending the packages, admitted that the packages contained biological material related to round worms, and admitted to making false statements to the CBP officers during her inspection.
Agents also found that contents of her electronic device, apparently her cell phone or computer, had been deleted three days prior to her arrival in the United States.
“This alien from Wuhan, China smuggled round worms and other biomaterials into our country on three separate occasions to circumvent our border protections. One of those times, she wrote that she was sending ‘a fun letter,’” interim U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. said. “The University of Michigan invited this Chinese national into our state to be a visiting scholar where it was going to give her more than $41,000 in a year to do her worm research at the Life Sciences Institute.”
“Something is wrong in Ann Arbor,” Gorgon added.
It has not been disclosed if the worms Han sent pose a hazard to people or crops.
Sentencing is scheduled for September 10, 2025. A conviction for smuggling goods into the United States carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. A conviction for making false statements carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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