A Chinese national living in Chicago was arrested this week for allegedly spying, work that including recruiting US scientists and engineers, the Associated Press reports.
Ji Chaoqun has been charged with one count of knowingly acting as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the attorney general, it adds.
The New York Times reports that intelligence officials approached Ji while he was a student in Beijing. According to criminal complaint, Ji arrived in the US on a student visa in 2013 to study engineering and enlisted in the US Army Reserves under a program that allows legal immigrants with needed skills to serve, the AP says.
CNN says, Ji's role, as described in the complaint, was to identify individuals to be potentially recruited as Chinese spies. The FBI alleges that Ji was asked to provide background check data on eight naturalized American citizens working in, or recently retired from, science and technology jobs, many of whom were defense contractors, the Times reports.