Zunyong Liu was coming to the U.S. to visit his girlfriend, Yunqing Jian, a researcher at the University of Michigan, where he hoped to use her lab to clone the fungus.

The Justice Department on Tuesday announced charges against two Chinese scholars accused of smuggling a dangerous biological pathogen with agroterrorism potential into the United…

Zunyong Liu admitted to smuggling the fungus so he could conduct research on it at a University of Michigan laboratory where his girlfriend worked, said officials.