Ontario student accused in U.S. of taking airport photos for Chinese official

An Ontario university student has been arrested in a counter-intelligence investigation in the United States after allegedly taking photos at airports in Toronto and Chicago at the request of someone he believed to be a Chinese government official. In an affidavit filed in Michigan court, an FBI agent said Weiheng Zeng, a Chinese citizen studying at the University of Waterloo, was initially flagged by authorities in connection with an incident at Chicago’s O’Hare airport in April. The agent said a man was seen taking photos, climbing a forklift and trying to open locked trailers at a FedEx facility at the airport on April 21, about 10 days after Zeng drove into the U.S.

Zeng was later linked to a car that was at the facility during the incident, a dark blue minivan with Ontario licence plates, the affidavit said. When Zeng tried to drive into the U.S. again with the same minivan on Aug.

23, the student was pulled aside for a series of interviews first with border agents and later with the FBI, the investigator said. Zeng gave conflicting accounts over the course of the interviews, the agent said. The document said he has been charged with making false statements.

At first, Zeng gave few details about his trip to Chicago in April, saying only that he took photos of planes, the affidavit said. He had told customs officers at the time that he was going to visit his sister, it said. When agents reviewed his phone, they found multiple photos of aircraft and military planes, as well as photos of Zeng and others in tactical clothes holding rifle-style firearms, the court document said.

Zeng said he took photos of model aircraft for a flight radar website, and that the guns in the photos were airsoft guns, which shoot pellets rather than bullets, the agent said. He also denied having any kind of military training. During a second interview with border agents, Zeng said he took photos of planes landing at O’Hare from a public parking lot, the affidavit said.

Later, he said he went to a FedEx facility and climbed a forklift to take pictures. The university student said he had also previously trespassed at a FedEx facility at Toronto’s Pearson airport but had been caught, the agent said.