In April 2025, Lai purportedly traveled to Houston, claiming the trip was for his online retail business and that he intended to stay for two weeks.

However, by May 9, 2025, over four weeks after his arrival in the U.S., Lai was spotted traveling by car with someone else from Houston to California and then returning to Junction, Texas, on May 15.

Both Chen and Lai are accused of working in the U.S. as agents of a foreign government without informing the U.S. attorney general. If found guilty, they each could face a fine of up to $250,000 and a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

“Hostile foreign intelligence services like the PRC’s Ministry of State Security dedicate years to recruiting individuals and cultivating them as intelligence assets to do their bidding within the United States,” Assistant Attorney General John Eisenberg of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said. “Under my leadership, the National Security Division will continue to defend our nation and way of life by rooting out and exposing our adversaries’ clandestine spy networks.”