U.S.'s 5,025,817 Chinese Spies

Chinese arrested for taking photos at Naval Air Station in Key West
By Jay Weaver
The future USS Billings is docked at the Naval Air Station Key West’s Truman Waterfront base on Aug. 1, 2019.

The day after Christmas, a Chinese man rose early because, he said, he wanted to take photographs of the sunrise on the grounds of the Naval Air Station in Key West.
It was only a matter of time before witnesses spotted Lyuyou Liao at 6:50 a.m. Thursday walking around a perimeter fence and entering the military facility from the rocks along the water.
They warned Liao that he was trespassing in a restricted area, known as the Truman Annex, as he took photographs of government buildings near “sensitive military facilities,” according to a federal criminal complaint filed Thursday.
Then, U.S. Military Police saw him snapping photos with the camera on his cellphone, approached him and took a look at the pictures.
The police officers immediately called a federal agent, who arrested Liao on a charge of entering Naval property for the purpose of photographing defense installations.
Liao agreed to waive his Miranda rights and told the agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in broken English that “he was trying to take photographs of the sunrise,” according to the complaint affidavit.
But when Liao provided the pass code to his cellphone and allowed the agent to look at the images, he “observed photographs of Truman Annex on the camera.”
Liao, 27, had his first federal court appearance Friday afternoon in Key West via a video hookup with Magistrate Judge Patrick Hunt in Fort Lauderdale and Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Gilbert in Miami.
Hunt appointed the federal public defender’s office to represent Liao and scheduled his pretrial detention hearing for Jan. 6.
His arraignment will be a week later.
Liao’s arrest marks the second time since last year that a Chinese national has been charged with taking photos of defense installations at the Naval Air Station in Key West
In September of last year, Zhao Qianli, who claimed to be a music "student" from China, got caught by the Key West police for trespassing onto the high-security Naval Air Station.
He later told federal authorities that he lost his way on the tourist trail and did not realize it was a military base.
Investigators found photos and videos on Qianli’s cellphone as well as on his digital camera that he had taken of government buildings and a Defense Department antenna field on the military base.
Qianli, 20, pleaded guilty in February to one count of photographing defense installations at the Key West military facility and was sentenced to one year in prison by U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore. 
The judge gave him the maximum sentence, which was higher than the sentencing guidelines between zero and six months.
The U.S. attorney’s office sought nine months in prison.
The following March, a Chinese woman was arrested at President Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach after she bluffed her way into Mar-a-Lago to attend a purported “United Nations friendship” event that she knew had been canceled before she left China.
Yujin Zhang, 33, was charged with trespassing in a restricted area and lying to a federal agent.
In September, Zhang was convicted at trial and sentenced in November to eights months in prison — or the time she had been in custody since her arrest — by U.S. District Judge Roy Altman.
Another Chinese woman, Lu Jing, 56, was arrested December 18 after she had been reported trespassing and taking pictures at Mar-a-Lago.

China’s growing influence in Latin America is a threat to our way of life

• In countries just a few hundred miles away China is taking every opportunity it can to gain influence and exert control.
• Latin America is the new battleground in the greatest geopolitical conflict of our time.

By Rick Scott

Chinese Cosco Shipping Rose container ship sails the newly inaugurated Cocoli locks, during the visit of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, in the Panama Canal, on December 3, 2018.

Last month I traveled to Panama, Colombia and Argentina. 

The purpose of my trip was to get an update on the fight for freedom and liberty in Venezuela, to highlight the important economic relationships between Latin America and my state of Florida and to continue building on the progress made to stop narco-trafficking.
On all of those fronts we made important progress and had great conversations about the future.
I came away with another impression that I, quite honestly, hadn’t expected. 

But it’s one that is stark and unmistakable. 

All across Latin America, we’re seeing the creeping influence of China in our hemisphere.
We know that China is a bad actor. 

China is not our friend. 

China sees the United States as its global adversary and is taking the steps necessary to win the great power conflict of the 21st Century.
We know they’ve been stealing our technology and our intellectual property. 

We know they manipulate their currency. 

We know they’ve been developing bases in the South China Sea. 

We know they’ve flooded the United States with dangerous fentanyl. 

We know their state sponsored technology companies like ZTE and Huawei have been accused of fraud, violating the Iran sanctions and stealing intellectual property. 

We know China consistently violates human rights. 

We know that China suppresses freedom of speech.
We know what China is. 

And yet, how many Americans realize that in countries just a few thousand miles (and in some cases a few hundred miles) away, China is taking every opportunity it can to gain influence and exert control. 

Latin America is the new battleground in the greatest geopolitical conflict of our time.
In Panama, the Chinese government is building its own port in Colon to exert more control over international trade between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres and drive out competition. 

Street restaurants in Panama have menus in English, Spanish and – you guessed it – Chinese.
Meanwhile, Colombia is experiencing a mass-influx of refugees from Venezuela. 

Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro’s policies are not only causing the deaths of thousands of his own people, he’s also created a refugee crisis with millions of Venezuelans fleeing his brutal regime. Most have gone to Colombia, which is struggling to keep up with the migration.
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping knows what Maduro is doing to his own people. 

He knows that he’s intentionally starving them, that he’s using Cuban security forces to harass dissidents and beat children in the streets. 

Xi doesn’t care. 

China is a willing participant in Maduro’s genocide.
China continues to prop up the Maduro regime, along with Cuba, Russia and Iran. 

Why? 

It’s pretty simple. 

Venezuela, before the tyranny of Hugo Chavez and Maduro, was an economic hub with huge reserves of oil and other natural resources. 

It can become that again and China wants in on the ground floor.
Even after the revelations of their dubious dealings, Maduro announced that Venezuela would make major investments in Huawei and ZTE despite not being able to even feed his own people. 

China’s support for Maduro is already paying off for them.
Almost 3,000 miles due south of Bogota, in Argentina, China is set to build a nuclear facility after signing an agreement with President Mauricio Macri. 

The deal includes a $10 billion loan from China.
Make no mistake. 

This is not by accident. 

Everything China does is on purpose. 

And right now, under our very noses, its purpose is to gain a foothold in Latin America by any means necessary, even if it means propping up ruthless dictators.
Politicians too rarely look at anything besides what’s directly in front of them. 

It’s hard for them to look beyond next week, let alone beyond the next election. 

So, I’ll say something that very few people are willing to say. 

The so-called trade war with China is causing some pain in our country right now.
I believe some short-term pain is worth it if we’re taking real steps to combat the greatest geopolitical foe we have. 

If we take a stand against China now, American businesses and American consumers will come out on top. 

Our manufacturing sector will be stronger. 

America will export more products. 

Our trade secrets will be protected. 

The average American consumer will benefit.
If we don’t face this threat head-on right now, we will still face it eventually. 

But if we wait, we’ll be in a much weaker position than we are now. 

China will just continue to walk all over us.
I think President Donald Trump is doing the right thing by standing up to China now. 

But there’s another step that we can all take to stem the tide of China’s growing influence in Latin America and around the world – support American businesses.
American taxpayers are funding China’s aggression every day. 

Every time we buy a product “made in China” we are putting another dollar into the pocket of the people stealing our technology, denying their people basic human rights and supporting genocide in Venezuela. 

It’s time to take a stand.
In my state, we take immense pride in products “Made in Florida.” 

It’s a driving force that led to our incredible economic turnaround. 

A return to this pride in home-grown businesses and products ensures America remains strong as the undisputed leader of the global economy.
I’m committed to supporting American businesses over Chinese products. 

I hope you’ll join me.
Washington politicians have let this happen. 

They’re too concerned with short-term political success and have ignored the long-term threats to our way of life. 

It needs to end, and it needs to end now.

China's new weapon of mass annihilation: fentanyl

Synthetic-drug scourge in U.S. starts in Chinese secret labs
By BY DAVID OVALLE

FBI agents crime lab specialists in HAZMAT suits prepare to enter the suspected carfentanil dealers home with a search warrant. The house is suspected of being a synthetic heroin drug lab on Friday, December 2, 2016

Captain Tony Milan-EMS Battalion Commander for City of Miami Fire Rescue, upper right, works on an overdose victim with his crew on Thursday November 17, 2017. The victim is suspected of a heroin/fentanyl overdose.

Hand-out images of suspected heroin found by Miami-dade police during a bust operation called Dragon Slayer in the Cutler Ridge area on Thursday December 15, 2016. 

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article130158314.html#storylink=cpy

China’s pharmaceutical industry is to blame for the epidemic of deadly fentanyl and similar drugs being shipped to Florida and other states, a federal government report concluded Wednesday.
The findings are not new — the growing problem of Chinese synthetic drugs was highlighted in the Miami Herald’s 2015 Pipeline China series — but underscore the challenges of curbing the opioid-addiction wave that has hit South Florida and communities across the country.
The report noted that even though China has "cooperated" with the American government to ban some versions of the potent drug commonly dubbed “synthetic heroin,” new versions are constantly concocted in clandestine labs before unknown quantities make their way to North America.
“Because illicit fentanyl is not widely used in China, authorities place little emphasis on controlling its production and export,” according to the report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The report’s release comes the same week as fentanyl and heroin were discussed at the first meeting of Miami-Dade’s Opioid Task Force, made up of elected leaders, law-enforcement officers and health officials looking for solutions to curb the crisis. 

The increase in the death toll has been staggering, the task force heard Monday.

There were at least 162 confirmed deaths related to fentanyl and its synthetic cousins in Miami-Dade, plus another 82 suspected cases that are awaiting final toxicology testing. 

In total, that’s a 208 percent increase from last year, according to the Medical Examiner’s office.
“More people are dying from this problem and this addiction than car accidents in Miami-Dade,” county Mayor Carlos Gimenez told the task force. 

“More people are dying of opioid addiction than of murders.”
Miami-Dade prosecutor Howard Rosen, who oversees narcotics investigations and is a member of the task force, said addicts seeking a high are willing to risk the danger.
“In law enforcement, we’re told the dealers sometimes use it as a marketing tool, implying their product is so good it can kill,” Rosen said.
The effects of fentanyl and its variants have been widely chronicled, devastating communities across the continent and in Florida, where a crackdown on prescription painkillers such as Oxycodone is believed to have led to the spike in heroin and fentanyl abuse.

Fentanyl, which is used legally as a surgical painkiller but is now more prevalent on the streets in its illegal Chinese-made form, can be 50 times more potent than heroin. 

There’s an even deadlier version wreaking havoc on Miami-Dade streets: carfentenil, a drug that is normally only used to tranquilize elephants and large animals.
Overdose deaths have hit every part of Miami-Dade, although the impoverished Overtown neighborhood has been particularly hard hit — it is also believed to be the go-to hub for sales of the illegal opioids.
In South Florida, the growing epidemic has ramped up law-enforcement efforts as the trade has created a new breed of drug dealers who use the internet to order synthetic narcotics from easily accessible Chinese websites. 

The drugs are sent to the United States or Mexico in packages deliberately mislabeled to avoid detection.
“Avoiding detection has become so simple that Chinese narcotics distributors will guarantee customers a second shipment if the first is seized by law enforcement,” Wednesday’s report said.
The maze of corruption and haphazard government regulations for chemicals and pharmaceuticals in China means the United States is effectively hamstrung, the report noted. 

“Bureaucratic infighting can prevent the Chinese government from carrying out precise and effective counternarcotics operations,” the report said.