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.

University of Michigan postdoctoral fellow Yunqing Jian, 33, has been charged alongside Zunyong Liu, 34, for the sinister plot tied to the Chinese Communist Party.

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.

Charges against Jian Yunqing and Liu Zunyong include conspiracy, smuggling ‘dangerous biological pathogen’ into US and visa fraud.