Dr. Charles Lieber’s arrest in January 2020 has no known connection to Coronavirus, according to federal documents surrounding his arrest.
On January 28, the Justice Department said in a statement that Lieber, the Chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department, was arrested and accused of “aiding the People’s Republic of China.” Lieber is accused of one count of making a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement.
Lieber’s Arrest Was Announced on the Same Day as the Arrest of Chinese Nationals Yanqing Ye & Zaosong Zheng, But the Cases Appear to Be Unrelated
Lieber’s arrest was announced on the same day as the indictment in Massachusetts of two Chinese nationals, Yanqing Ye, 28, who is accused of spying through Boston University, not Harvard, and not in relation to Coronavirus. As well as Zaosong Zheng, 30, a medical researcher who was attempting to smuggle vials of cancer cells to China in order to pass off research conducted at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston as his own.
Lieber Is Accused of Being Paid Millions to Work for China’s Thousand Talents Project
Lieber’s indictment accuses him of had lied about his involvement with a Chinese government project Thousand Talents Plan. The plan is based out of Wuhan University of Technology. Wuhan is considered ground zero for Coronavirus. The DOJ alleges that since 2011, Lieber has been a “Strategic Scientist” for Wuhan University of Technology and worked for the Thousand Talents plan between 2012 and 2017.
The Feds say that for his role, Lieber was paid $50,000 per month, $158,000 in living expenses, and more than $1.5 million in exchange for creating a research lab at Wuhan University of Technology. The press release adds that Lieber’s work in China was unknown to his superiors at Harvard University. Between 2018 and 2019, the indictment says that Lieber lied to various investigators about his role in Wuhan. At one point, Lieber is accused of saying that he hadn’t worked in Wuhan since 2012.
According to the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, “China designed the Thousand Talents Plan to recruit 2,000 high-quality overseas talents, including scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and finance experts. The plan provides salaries, research funding, lab space, and other incentives to lure experts into researching for China.”
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