Chinese scientists lose U.S. citizenship after hospital trade secret theft convictions

A federal judge has revoked the U.S. citizenship of a Chinese husband-and-wife research scientist duo who stole medical trade secrets from a children’s hospital and sold them to benefit a company they secretly established, the Justice Department announced.

Judge James E. Simmons Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California entered the denaturalization order March 30, finding that Li Chen and Yu Zhou had illegally procured their naturalization. Both had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets and conspiracy to commit wire fraud — crimes the court determined involved moral turpitude that disqualified them from meeting the good moral character standard required for citizenship.

Chen and Zhou, both Chinese nationals, worked as research scientists at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, where they focused on exosome isolation. Chen entered the United States in 2007 on an H-1B visa sponsored by the hospital, and Zhou followed in 2008 under the same visa category. Chen naturalized in 2016 and Zhou in 2017.

Federal investigators discovered the couple had been stealing NCH’s proprietary exosome isolation technology for personal gain. Each indictment alleged they used the stolen intellectual property to establish their own company and acquire shares in a second company that also utilized the stolen trade secrets. Prosecutors further alleged that both scientists received funding from China’s State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs. In total, the pair collected nearly $1.5 million from transactions involving the stolen intellectual property, according to court documents.

Both were arrested in 2019. Chen was sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and Zhou received 33 months in prison and three years of supervised release. A federal judge ordered them to pay more than $2.6 million in restitution jointly and severally.

In the denaturalization ruling, the court held that the wire fraud conspiracy constituted a crime of moral turpitude warranting citizenship revocation, and separately found that both crimes reflected adversely on the defendants’ moral character with no extenuating circumstances to offset that finding.

“Gaining citizenship after committing serious crimes against the American people is an unacceptable abuse of our immigration system,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said.