A suspected Chinese agent arrested at Los Angeles International Airport over the weekend will remain in federal custody, a federal judge ruled Wednesday during a court hearing. The decision comes amid FBI concerns that she may try to flee the country if she is released, law enforcement sources previously told CBS News. Prosecutors successfully argued that real estate agent Wanying Zhang, 34, posed too great a flight risk. She had offered to post more than $1.2 million in property for his bail. Prosecutors told Judge Steve Kim at the Los Angeles hearing that Zhang has a brother with a history of working for the Chinese government and that his parents and siblings live in China. The Orange County mother now faces federal prosecution for allegedly surveilling the Taiwanese president’s son in Washington last year at the direction of Chinese government officials. Waning “Heather” Zhang. FBI investigators have said Zhang owned a business in China, has money regularly deposited in a Chinese bank account and has parents, a brother and a sister who currently live there, CBS News has learned. A law enforcement source said Zhang also had a Chinese passport that was not recovered during an FBI search of his home. Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Elbogen confirmed this in court Wednesday. The sources provided information anonymously as they were not authorized to speak on the record. Zhang’s husband and sister declined to comment. Elbogen told the court on Wednesday that Zhang had received $190,000 in a Chinese bank account from an “unregistered cryptocurrency exchange” business and had “hundreds of thousands of dollars” at his disposal in China. Zhang is currently in the custody of the US Marshals in Los Angeles. She was arrested Sunday while trying to board a flight to Shanghai at LAX, CBS News first reported. She previously appeared briefly in court on Monday, represented by a public defender. The judge had told Zhang to find a private defense attorney at the time of his detention hearing on Wednesday, which he did. Prosecutors on Wednesday accused Zhang of lying on forms he filled out declaring his assets after his arrest, saying he only owned one property when he actually owned several. Zhang’s defense attorney, Craig Harbaugh, told the judge it was a “misunderstanding.” However, Kim noted “inconsistencies” about the number of properties and assets Zhang owns and “where the money comes from.” During the hearing, Elbogen also referred to Zhang as a “secret agent of a hostile foreign power” and accused her of “spying” on behalf of the Chinese government. “He has been lying to his own family about who he is,” Elbogen told the court. Elbogen stated that Zhang has traveled to China 12 times since 2014 and internationally 29 times, including Paris, France and Japan. Harbaugh responded that the government’s only allegation of espionage dates back to September 2025, and that his client’s last contact with his Chinese government officials, according to the complaint, was in October 2025. Zhang appeared in court Wednesday in shackles and a white jumpsuit. Her husband, Eric Ding, a real estate agent with the same Irvine, California, firm as his wife, watched from the public gallery with his sister, attorney Elaine Lori, at his side. Both Ding and Lori also attended Monday’s hearing. According to the criminal complaint against Zhang, she attended the Beijing University of International Relations between 2010 and 2014, run by China’s Ministry of State Security, the country’s intelligence agency and secret police. FBI Counterintelligence Special Agent Kevin Holt wrote in his sworn statement in the complaint that the ministry “recruits heavily” from the university. Two law enforcement sources told CBS News that Zhang was one of the top students in her class at UIR. Zhang’s Facebook page shows she is friends with eight current or former employees and students at the university. As an example of Zhang’s alleged connections to the Chinese government, Elbogen said Wednesday that when Zhang was living in China, he was able to expedite the government’s permission to relocate her. residence from Beijing to another city. In its criminal complaint, the FBI said it obtained Zhang’s text messages with Chinese intelligence officials planning and executing a scheme last year to secretly film Taiwan’s first son, Lai Ting-yu, and his family in the Seattle suburb where they live. Investigators alleged that they have footage from a neighbor’s security camera that captures Zhang in the middle of his supposed surveillance mission. Zhang’s alleged accomplice on his alleged trip to Seattle, named only as Individual 1 in the complaint, left on a one-way ticket to China about two weeks ago, prosecutors said during Wednesday’s hearing. On Tuesday, CBS News also revealed Zhang’s ties to a Chinese-American advocacy group with deep ties to the Chinese government. He traveled to San Francisco with the All American Chinese Association to celebrate Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit there in 2023. Pro-China activists then attacked pro-democracy protesters outside Xi’s hotel. There is no evidence that Zhang was involved in the violence. A photograph shows her behind an AACA banner, standing next to the group’s leader, Edward Cai, who previously served as vice president of an organization so close to the Chinese government that it was forced to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. FARA requires agents of foreign governments to report to the Department of Justice their status and any lobbying, influence attempts or other activities in the U.S. Cai and the AACA did not respond to a request for comment. Reached by phone on Sunday, Ding told CBS News: “I don’t know anything yet.” He declined to comment further Monday in federal court. More from CBS News Go deeper with The Free Press in:
