The United States arrested two Chinese scientists to introduce various toxic fungi to the country for several crops subject to the authorities of “agrarian terrorism” to study it in the Laboratory of the University of Michigan. Arrests are made in the context of strengthening visa controls to foreign students, which the Donald Trump government announced that it also plans to significantly remove.
The FBI and the customs observation department in the United States assure that two detainees, Yunzing Jian, 33 -year -old woman, and Zunion Liu, 34 man, intended to work with the fungus Fusarium GraminearumIt is responsible for fusariosis, a common plant disease, such as wheat, barley, corn or rice, which can cause vomiting and damage to the liver, as well as a reproductive system in cattle and consumers, if they pass after pollution.
The accusation indicates that Jian worked at the University of Michigan and already dealt with a pathogen in China, where he accurately received state funding for his activities. The press release of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office of Michigan indicates a sign of guilt that the agents who found on their electronic devices “information about their belonging to the Chinese Communist Party”.
Liu first denied that he took Pathogen to the United States from a Chinese institution in which he also works as scientists, but then admitted that he introduced him through Detroit airport, precisely to study him in the laboratory with Jiang.
This question is very serious, according to the federal prosecutor Jerome F. Gorgon, Jr. “These two foreigners were accused of smuggling of the mushroom described as“ potential weapons of agricultural terrorism ”in the heart of America,” he said, according to the press release in which he reports that he was arrested, but did not describe in detail that it was really terrorists for creativity or only gaining scientists. Among the accusations are false testimonies and visa fraud.
The head of the FBI in Detroit, Chevoria Gibson, said that the facts “suggested an inevitable threat to public security.” The head of the Bureau of Customs and the Border Protection of Marty S. Raybon, on the other hand, added that “biological threats” can “destroy the agricultural economy and harm people” and that the investigation was “difficult”.
The arrests arrive after the Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated last week that he would rent visas “energetically” for Chinese students – an announcement that caused criticism of Beijing or critics with Israel. The US President, Donald Trump, also gave an order to suspend an interview to provide a visa to foreign students and proposed to control their social networks. The Russian scientist from Harvard University also faces a possible deportation for not announcing biological samples directly around a trip to France.