A federal judge sentenced two Chinese agents to 30 months in prison each on Friday, October 30. Liren “Ryan” Lai, 40, and Yuance Chen, 39, admitted working for China’s Ministry of State Security, Beijing’s main civilian spy service. The agency tasked them with paying informants and scouting US Navy sailors as possible recruits, the Justice Department said.

Each man also got three years of supervised release. Neither faced an espionage charge. Both pleaded guilty to a narrower crime: secretly acting as an agent of a foreign government in the US.

That choice of charge explains the short sentences. The FBI called this case a “clear warning.” Yet the men got two and a half years, while a Navy sailor who sold ship information to a Chinese officer got more than 16 years in January.

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A backpack of cash in a Livermore locker

The two men began working for the Ministry of State Security, or MSS, no later than May 2021. Lai recruited Chen and at first relayed orders from MSS officers. Chen later took assignments from the officers directly.

Their first known job was a payment. In January 2022, both men were in China. From there, they arranged for people in the US to leave a backpack with about $10,000 in a locker in Livermore, California. The locker was at a recreational facility, prosecutors said in their sentencing memorandum.

The cash paid for national security information someone had already passed to the MSS, according to the 2025 charging announcement. Spy services call this a dead drop. It lets them pay a source without a meeting.

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The government has not said who collected the money or what it bought. The Pleasanton Weekly, which covers the Tri-Valley around Livermore, reported the sentencing on Sunday.

Photos of Navy Base Kitsap and a recruiting station

From 2022, Chen gathered information on US military sites and personnel for Lai and the MSS. He photographed Navy Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Washington. He also took photos and videos of recruits and sailors inside a Navy recruiting station in Southern California.

The 2025 complaint placed that station in San Gabriel, California. It said Chen took recruits’ personal details there and “appears to have transmitted” them to an MSS officer in China. The MSS also coached him on how to approach future sailors without getting caught, the complaint said.

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Chen gathered personal details about one Navy employee, whom he contacted over social media. He kept biographical files on service members the MSS might target, the department said.

In March 2023, Lai flew to the US and handed Chen a phone for covert contact with the MSS. Chen called it a “state secret,” prosecutors said. Chen then met MSS officers in Guangzhou in April 2024 and March 2025 and took on new assignments.

A planned $20,000 payment and two arrests

Lai came back to the US in April 2025. He landed in Houston on a tourist visa and claimed he was there for his online retail business, the complaint said. In May, the MSS sent him to Phoenix to help with another cash payment of about $20,000.

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The complaint described a road trip that month. Lai drove from Houston to Southern California through New Mexico and Tucson, Arizona, between May 9 and May 15.

The FBI arrested both men on June 27, 2025. Agents picked up Chen, a legal permanent resident, in Happy Valley, Oregon, and Lai in Houston. A grand jury in the Northern District of California indicted them on July 1.

Lai pleaded guilty to both counts on December 12, 2025. Chen pleaded guilty on February 20, 2026. The government has not said whether anyone took the second payment. It also has not said whether the pair recruited any service member.

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Why this was not an espionage case

Prosecutors charged the men under 18 U.S.C. § 951. That law bars anyone from acting in the US as a foreign government’s agent without notifying the attorney general. It carries up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The statute does not require proof that defense secrets changed hands. Prosecutors only need to show the defendant worked for a foreign government without giving notice.

Compare the Navy cases before it. In January 2026, a judge gave former sailor Jinchao Wei 200 months in prison. A jury had convicted him of espionage for selling national defense information to a Chinese officer for $12,000.

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In January 2024, sailor Wenheng “Thomas” Zhao got 27 months. He had taken close to $15,000 from a Chinese intelligence officer. In return he passed information, photos and videos of Navy exercises and facilities, CBS Los Angeles reported.

Lai and Chen worked the recruiting end of that pipeline. Prosecutors did not accuse them of holding secrets, but of finding and paying people who do. Their 30 months sit close to Zhao’s term and well below the 10-year maximum. The public announcement does not say what sentence prosecutors sought.

What officials said about the sentences

“Lai’s and Chen’s activities, undertaken at the direction of the PRC, were extensive and brazen,” said John A. Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general for national security.

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US Attorney Craig H. Missakian said foreign intelligence had told the men to gather military information “in the hopes of undermining our national security.”

Roman Rozhavsky heads the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division. He said Beijing “has underestimated the FBI’s commitment to thwarting its illegal activity.” He added: “Let this sentencing serve as a clear warning.”

The FBI’s San Francisco office led the investigation with three other field offices and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. In 2025, NCIS Director Omar Lopez said China “has for years attempted through various means to recruit U.S. service members as intelligence assets.”

The case lands as Washington widens its scrutiny of Chinese links to the US military. On October 19, the Pentagon said all 30 universities it had audited ended or “fully mitigated” ties to institutions on its security list. The Defense Intelligence Agency has also published the clearest public photo yet of a secretive Chinese spaceplane.

Lai and Chen will start three years of supervised release once they leave prison. The Justice Department has not said where either man will serve his term.