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The sister of an Ontario university student arrested in an FBI counter-intelligence investigation has denied her brother is knowingly involved in espionage for Beijing.
“If my brother is a Chinese spy, then I’m Trump’s father,” Meixuan Wang wrote in a social media post on Wednesday.
Weiheng Zeng — a Chinese citizen born in 2004 and a student at the University of Waterloo — was arrested while attempting to cross the U.S. border from Windsor, Ont., last month and charged with making false statements.
According to a criminal complaint, Zeng admitted to accepting paid “taskings” from an individual he believed to be associated with a Chinese security service.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Michigan, includes security camera images which appear to show a man climbing a forklift, trying to open a locked FedEx truck and taking photos from a parking lot at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in April.
According to court documents, Zeng told investigators his unnamed contact directed him to photograph aircraft and tail numbers, in exchange for $20-30 US per picture.
The criminal complaint, signed by FBI special agent Robert Holbrook, also says Zeng recounted trespassing and taking pictures last year at a FedEx facility at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, at the request of the same, unidentified individual.
The allegations amount to “espionage-type activities,” prosecutor Alyse Wu told the Detroit court.
Gina Balaya, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said in an email to CBC News the case is still under investigation.
University of Waterloo student Weiheng Zeng is suspected of espionage after the FBI said he admitted to accessing U.S. and Canadian airport facilities to photograph planes on behalf of a mysterious Chinese handler.
Self-described ‘photography lover’
On Zeng’s public Instagram page — where he goes by the first name Billy — he describes himself as a “photography lover” and says he expects to graduate from Waterloo’s global business and digital arts program in 2028.
His profile features pictures of planes, including Canadian military aircraft apparently photographed at an air show in 2024.
Zeng’s Instagram page also includes photos taken on trips to Chicago, where his sister lives and works as an artist, according to her social media pages.
Wang, who also goes by the first name Jade, told the Globe and Mail her brother is obsessed with airplanes and has autism spectrum disorder. She said Zeng may not have realized the trouble he was in when he was questioned by U.S. border officers.
Wang declined CBC News’s interview request.
Rhonda Brazile, a court-appointed federal defender listed as Zeng’s lawyer, did not respond to a request for comment.
Zeng is scheduled to again appear in court next week. He remains in custody and did not request to be released on bond.
RCMP spokesperson Camille Boily-Lavoie said the Mounties are aware of the case, but declined to say whether they were involved in the FBI’s probe. CSIS referred questions to the RCMP.
“I feel, in a way, sorry for [Zeng],” Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, an Ottawa-based advisory board member at the China Strategic Risks Institute think-tank, said in an interview earlier this week.
“I’m sure he didn’t realize when he was doing this what he was getting into.”
She said China’s Ministry of State Security routinely leans on students abroad to gather information and take photos that could prove useful to Beijing’s spy agencies.
“They don’t have to use their own people to find out this information, and so they have deniability,” McCuaig-Johnston said.
An unnamed spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa said in a statement on Wednesday that Beijing “firmly opposes hyping up the so-called ‘China spy threat’ and baseless speculations and smears against China.”
Michel Juneau-Katsuya, who served as chief of the Asia-Pacific unit for CSIS, said people who agree to be paid to carry out tasks for intelligence organizations are referred to in the industry as “co-optees.”
“The question is, is [Zeng] a spy or is he somebody who was recruited to do a job for a spy?” Juneau-Katsuya said. “And it sounds like maybe he’s the latter.”
