Medical Student Tried to Smuggle Cancer Research to China
January 1st, 2020Just another day at the office.
Via: AP:
A medical student from China who U.S. authorities say tried to smuggle cancer research material taken from a Boston hospital out of the country has been held without bail by a judge who ruled he was a flight risk.
Zaosong Zheng, 29, who last year earned a visa sponsored by Harvard University to study in the U.S., appeared Monday in U.S. District Court in Boston. He was arrested Dec. 10 at Boston’s Logan Airport on a charge of making false statements.
Magistrate Judge David Hennessy ruled that evidence suggested Zheng had tried to smuggle vials of research specimens in a sock in his suitcase bound for China and granted the prosecution’s request to hold him without bail.
Zheng stole the materials from his lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, authorities allege.
Some vials contained a colleague’s work he had replicated without the authorization or knowledge of the lab, Zheng told authorities, according to court documents. He was possibly acting on behalf of the Chinese government, the FBI said in an affidavit included in court documents.
