Former IU post-doctoral researcher Youhuang Xiang pled guilty last Friday to concealing a shipment of plasmid DNA from China as women’s clothing.
Xiang intended to use it for his USDA-sponsored research at IU on crop resistance to fungal diseases, but by not declaring the contents of that package, he violated import procedures, said Special Agent in charge Tim O’Malley, head of the Indianapolis FBI field office.
“He knew it but chose to ignore it and then violate the law,” O’Malley said.
FBI Director Kash Patel said it was “a scheme to circumvent U.S. laws.” But when it comes to his motives and the actual risks posed by plasmids, the evidence tells a different story says Xiang’s supervisor, IU Professor Roger Innes.
“It's perfectly legal to bring plasmid DNA into the country. There's no health risk, no safety risk,” Innes said. “It's basically an inert substance when it's in purified form, and he had no reason to conceal it.”
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Xiang is currently jailed at the Miami Correctional Facility near Kokomo, a high-medium security prison and ICE detention center, with 550 other non-citizens.
It’s his latest stop in a series of jails and immigrant detention centers: Chicago, Oklahoma City, Indianapolis and Clay County.
His attorney, James Tunick, is hopeful he will be deported this weekend.
“That is a significant, arduous journey, and he has suffered tremendously as a result,” Tunick said. “My goal was to get him home, back to his family. He should be there by now. Unfortunately, ICE has not acted quickly.”
Xiang is one of the latest Chinese scientists working in the U.S. to lose his position and reputation after a federal investigation. And like the others, the official narrative differs vastly from the version told by his colleagues.
FBI investigates IU lab
Xiang’s arrest follows a similar case in Michigan and a tip from the Detroit FBI.
The Justice Department charged 33-year-old University of Michigan researcher Yunqing Jian and her boyfriend Zunyong Liu of smuggling a fungal plant pathogen through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
The couple studies the fungus Fusarium graminearum, which causes crop blight. Jian’s lab develops methods to protect crops.
U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon accused the Chinese couple of plotting “agroterrorism” and said they “intended to use a University of Michigan laboratory to further their scheme.”
According to Innes, that didn’t make sense.
He has said publicly that while harmful to plants, the fungus is already common in the wild and is highly dependent on environmental conditions to flourish.
“Based on the article, it was obvious to me that the story was designed to generate anti-Chinese hysteria,” he said.
Innes wrote a letter for their defense, acknowledging the couple broke import laws but saying evidence didn’t back up the government’s accusations.
One week after his letter was read in court, the Detroit FBI tipped off the Indianapolis division about Xiang’s package.
Xiang’s shipment was flagged in spring 2024, with CBP officers questioning why a shipment from “Guangzhoi Sci Tech Innovation Trading” would be labeled as women’s underwear.
O’Malley said that type of inter office collaboration is common, especially when working on similar cases.
“When someone doesn't follow the process and they try to sneak it in or to smuggle it in, it obviously brings concerns up,” O’Malley said. “Why wouldn't they declare? Why is it something that they're afraid to let us know about?”
Said Innes: “There is a simple explanation. Most Chinese Universities block export of biological materials to US researchers. To get around this, Chinese researchers hire third party shippers to take care of the shipping. These shippers typically do not declare the biological material to avoid any questions by export control leaving China. In other words, the smuggling is to enable the Chinese researchers to share their materials with US colleagues, NOT to circumvent US customs.”
The government acted in November 2025, a few days after the Detroit tip. Xiang was returning from a short-term exchange program in the UK when border patrol pulled him aside at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. FBI agents watched from another room as he was questioned about the package.
Xiang told officers about the plasmid DNA and said it was used specifically for his research at IU. He also admitted to lying about the contents of the package.
Xiang was charged and jailed in Chicago, and his J1 visa was revoked. The criminal complaint said falsely that he brought E. coli into the U.S.
Mislabeled shipment
Plasmid DNA is not alive. It is an inert substance and poses no risk to human or plant health.
Scientists use plasmids to transfer genes into other cells, and as such they’re useful for genetic engineering. Molecular biology labs use E. coli to reproduce them, and if they don’t encode for infectious agents, they don’t require a permit to import.
“The fact that it grew up in E. coli is irrelevant,” Innes said. “It has no genes from E. Coli in it; it can't infect you. Once you've purified DNA, it's the same DNA that you would purify from your own cells. It was clear the FBI just didn't understand what he was talking about.”
Tunick said the question of safety was not a factor in Xiang’s conviction or trial.
“It was stipulated in court by the prosecutors, by all the agents, that this was not dangerous biological material,” he said. “That's uncontroverted.”
But O’Malley said he has a different understanding of plasmid DNA.
“It's used as kind of like a material that can hold disease, bacteria, viruses, things like that, in order for experimentation to happen,” he said.
“I view it as being a risk to human health, the environment and our economy. I've seen from my perspective that this is utilized by folks with criminal intent, with not the legitimate purpose, and it can be definitely can be utilized to advance their goal.”
Since his arrest, some of the country’s most powerful men have accused Xiang of threatening the health and safety of Americans.
Patel named him in a viral tweet as “yet another example of a researcher from China” scheming to break the law and falsely claimed he smuggled E. coli, not DNA plasmids.
USDA Inspector General John Walk likewise repeated false statements about the risk posed by Xiang’s package in a press release after his conviction.
“This Chinese Communist Party member exploited a federally funded research grant from USDA to smuggle dangerous biological material into the United States,” he said.
Those comments shared on social media and in news stories have prompted comments calling for harsher punishment for Xiang and questioning why the U.S. grants visas to Chinese researchers at all.
“Why do they keep referring to this as dangerous biological materials when clearly the prosecutor and all the case agents agree that it was not dangerous biological material?” Tunick asked.
WFIU/WTIU News asked O’Malley whether Xiang intended the plasmids for criminal use.
“Our investigation hasn't led us to believe that there was some sort of nefarious purpose,” he said.
Sentencing and consequences
Xiang pleaded guilty to only one of the three charges, secretively importing merchandise which should have been invoiced. He was sentenced to time served and ordered to be deported.
Since the criminal act was clear and Xiang’s visa had already been revoked, Tunick said his goal was to get his client out of ICE detention and back to China.
“I did not want to see him go into immigration custody waiting for this criminal case to resolve itself, so we resolved this case as quickly as possible in light of the circumstances,” Tunick said.
Colleagues at IU and in the UK submitted letters testifying to his character and the lack of a threat posed by plasmid DNA.
Xiang’s sisters, both of whom live in China, pleaded with the judge for leniency.
“He would never do anything improper, even when no one was watching,” his sister Yingying wrote. “For example, he would always spit into a tissue, wrap it up, and throw it properly in the trash. He never even crossed against a red light, even if there were no cars or people around.”
His sister Qiao expressed hope their family would be reunited soon.
“It is precisely because of his rare filial piety and kindness that, upon learning their youngest son had been detained, my parents cried every day and fell ill from overwhelming worry and grief,” she wrote.
Meanwhile at IU, Innes said his lab hasn’t recovered.
FBI agents took notebooks, laptops and hard drives from him and other researchers for investigation. They have not been returned. Despite being certified in compliance with USDA regulations, the department terminated a research agreement with Innes’s lab without providing an explanation.
Last month, IU told Innes he was not allowed to exchange biological materials with a researcher in China “due to the ongoing federal investigation.”
WFIU/WTIU News requested interviews with the IU General Counsel and Research Security Office. Spokesperson Mark Bode emailed a response:
“To ensure the integrity of Indiana University’s research mission, we expect all faculty, staff and students to follow IU policy as well as state and federal laws."
But Innes said the biggest setback is losing Xiang, who led a USDA funded project focused on developing disease resistant wheat plants.
He acknowledged China’s role as a major U.S. competitor and rare instances of intellectual property theft by Chinese scientists but questioned the government’s growing distrust.
“They're developing biotechnology very quickly, and we do need to compete with them,” he said. “But this idea that the way to compete with them is to throw out Chinese scientists from our country is just really mistaken.”
