The FBI fears suspected Chinese agent arrested at LAX on Sunday could attempt to flee the country if released after her court hearing Wednesday, law enforcement sources told CBS News.
Investigators charge California real estate agent Wanying Zhang owns a business in China, regularly deposits money into a Chinese bank account and has parents, a brother and a sister currently living there, CBS News has learned.
A police source said Zhang also had a Chinese passport that was not found during an FBI search of his home.
The sources provided information anonymously because they were not authorized to speak on the record. Zhang’s husband and sister declined to comment.
FBI 
The 34-year-old Orange County mother now faces federal charges for allegedly surveilling the Taiwanese president’s son in Washington last year at the direction of Chinese government officials.
Zhang is currently in the custody of US Marshals in Los Angeles. She was arrested on Sunday trying to board a Shanghai-bound flight at Los Angeles International Airport, CBS News was first to report it.
She appeared briefly in court on Mondayrepresented by a public defender. The judge asked Zhang to retain a private attorney before his detention hearing, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
Her husband, Edric Ding, a real estate agent at the same Irvine, Calif., firm, attended the hearing alongside his sister, who is an attorney.
According to the criminal complaint filed against Zhang, she attended Beijing International Relations University between 2010 and 2014, which is run by China’s Ministry of State Security, the country’s intelligence agency and secret police.
FBI Counterintelligence Special Agent Kevin Holt wrote in his affidavit that the department is “recruiting heavily” at the university.
Two law enforcement sources told CBS News that Zhang was one of the top students in her class at UIR.
Zhang’s Facebook page shows that she is friends with eight current or former staff and students at the university.
On Tuesday, CBS News revealed Zhang’s ties to a Chinese-American advocacy group with deep ties to the Chinese government.
She traveled to San Francisco with the All American Chinese Association, to celebrate Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit there in 2023. Pro-China activists later attacked pro-democracy protesters outside Xi’s hotel. There is no evidence that Zhang was involved in the violence.
One photograph shows her behind an AACA banner, alongside the group’s leader, Edward Cai, who was previously vice president of an organization so close to the Chinese government that it was forced to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
FARA requires agents of foreign governments to notify the Department of Justice of their status and any lobbying, influence attempts, or other activities in the United States.
Cai and the AACA did not respond to a request for comment.
Reached by phone Sunday, Ding told CBS News, “I don’t know anything yet.” He declined to comment further Monday in federal court.
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