By Bruce Tomaso and Karen Freifeld
(Reuters) – An FBI agent testified on Monday that Chinese nationals brought to the United States under research visas went to work for ZTE Corp in New Jersey – a possible sign the Chinese tech company violated its probation following a 2017 U.S. plea deal in a prior case.
At a hearing in federal court in Dallas, FBI special agent Marcus Wondergem said Chinese nationals were brought to the United States under the guise that they would be doing research at the lab of Georgia Tech professor Gee-Kung Chang, but spent almost no time there and moved to apartments near ZTE in Morristown, New Jersey.
“Is it true that some of these individuals spent months without entering the lab?” Assistant U.S. Attorney John de la Garza asked Wondergem.
“Yes, it is,” Wondergem replied.
The testimony may support the accusation that ZTE violated its probation from its guilty plea in a case involving illegally shipping American technology to Iran. U.S. District Court Judge Ed Kinkeade summoned the company to his courtroom over the possible violation involving an alleged conspiracy to commit visa fraud.
During his testimony, the FBI’s Wondergem said he checked the door logs for the Georgia Tech lab and produced leases for apartments in Morristown.
Chang and Jianjun Yu, a former ZTE research director in New Jersey, are accused of conspiring to bring Chinese nationals to the United States to conduct research at ZTE between at least 2014 and 2018, according to an indictment unsealed in March 2021.
The Chinese nationals were in the United States on J-1 visas, which are intended for work and study at sponsoring institutions like Georgia Tech.
ZTE has not been charged in the visa case, which is pending in federal court in Atlanta. In a filing on Monday, ZTE said the U.S. Justice Department’s view was that the company was responsible for Yu’s actions.
Chang has pleaded not guilty. A lawyer for Chang, Robert Fisher, declined to comment. Yu’s status is unclear. ZTE said he left the company in 2019.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld in Washington and Bruce Tomaso in Dallas; Editing by Will Dunham)
