MIT professor Gang Chen was at his home in Cambridge on a Thursday morning when he was met by the police, there to arrest the engineer over claims that for years he had hid illicit ties to the People’s Republic of China.
Only a few hours later, U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling took to television alongside the FBI to outline his office’s allegations against Chen: that the scientist exploited the United States by using millions in federal grant money to benefit China’s government, that he accepted millions more in foreign funding, primarily from groups connected to the PRC, and that he concealed Chinese bank accounts worth around $25,000 from the Internal Revenue Service.