A Chinese researcher working in the United States has pleaded guilty to smuggling E. coli into the country. 32-year-old Youhuang Xiang, a Chinese national and former postdoctoral researcher on a J-1 visa at Indiana University, was sentenced to more than four months in prison after admitting to concealing bacterial DNA in a shipment sent from China.According to the US Attorney’s office in Indian, the package was falsely labeled as women’s underwear to avoid detection. It was delivered to Xiang’s home in Bloomington, Indiana, in March 2024. Xiang later admitted the shipment contained DNA of Escherichia coli, a bacterium commonly found in the gut but capable of causing serious illness if harmful strains are mishandled or are in the wrong hands.The case first came to light last year when the FBI began investigating suspicious shipments from China to individuals linked to Indiana University. Investigators became suspicious of a parcel that had been sent by a science and technology company but declared as clothing.Xiang was later stopped by US Customs and Border Protection officers at Chicago O’Hare International Airport in November 2025 after returning from the United Kingdom. At first, he said he knew nothing about the package, but later admitted he had hidden the biological material on purpose. Xiang also did not reveal about his membership of the Chinese Communist Party to US immigration authorities.FBI officials and director Kash Patel himself warned that smuggling biological materials into the country without proper safeguards could have serious consequences. Patel also said that this is yet another example of using the US visa ‘privilege’ to exploit nation’s institutions for illegal activity. Following his prison term, Xiang has been ordered to leave the United States. He will also face a fine and a period of supervised release.“This Chinese Communist Party member exploited a federally funded research grant… to smuggle dangerous biological material into the United States,” USDA Inspector General John Walk said.In recent months, US authorities have charged several foreign researchers, including Chinese nationals linked to a University of Michigan laboratory, with attempting to smuggle biological materials into the country. In a separate case, a Russian-born Harvard researcher was detained in early 2025 for bringing frog embryos into the US without proper permits.
