More than a year after five Chinese nationals confronted each other in the dark near a remote military base in Michigan where thousands of people had gathered for summer training, U.S. authorities say He was charged with lying and trying to cover his tracks.
The five, who were students at the University of Michigan at the time, were not charged in connection with what happened at Camp Grayling in August 2023. Rather, they are accused of misleading investigators about the trip and conspiring to delete photos from their cellphones, according to the criminal complaint. filed in federal court.
The FBI noted in a court filing Tuesday that there have been instances of Chinese college students taking photos of important U.S. defense facilities.
There was nothing in the file to reveal the whereabouts of the five.
“The defendants are not in custody. If they come into contact with U.S. authorities, they will be arrested and face these charges,” Detroit U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman Gina Baraya said Wednesday. .
In the summer of 2023, the five were confronted near a lake after midnight by Utah National Guard Sgt. “We're the media,” one of them told them before agreeing to collect their belongings and leave the area, the FBI said.
The FBI learned the men had booked rooms at a nearby motel a week before they were found outside Camp Grayling, 320 miles north of Detroit.
Four months later, one of the men was interviewed by Border Patrol agents at the Detroit airport before traveling to South Korea and China. The FBI said the suspect told investigators he had traveled to northern Michigan “to see shooting stars.”
The FBI said an examination of his external hard drive revealed two images of military vehicles taken on the same night as the encounter with the National Guard.
The remaining four were interviewed last March after arriving in Chicago on a flight from Iceland. They admitted to being in northern Michigan in August 2023, but said they were there to see a meteor shower, the FBI said.
They mentioned the National Guard by name, but only referred to him as a “soldier,” a camper, or a “nice guy,” according to the criminal complaint.
Investigators said the men exchanged information on WeChat in December about erasing photos from cameras and cell phones.
All five graduated from the University of Michigan last spring, the FBI said. These were part of a joint program between the university and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China.
In 2020, two Chinese nationals pursuing master's degrees at the University of Michigan were sentenced to prison for illegally filming at Naval Air Station Key West, Florida.
