U.S. says more charged in UF-China smuggling plot; participant receives light sentence

The Sam M. Gibbons United States Courthouse is located at 801 North Florida Ave., in Tampa, Fla. (Brooke Johnson/Fresh Take Florida)

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a confessed participant to five years of probation in a plot that diverted millions of dollars worth of biomedical drugs, toxins, and research supplies from the University of Florida to China over seven years.

During the courtroom hearing, the prosecutor in the case said others may face federal criminal charges, including a person identified in court filings only as a UF research employee who worked in the stockroom of one of the university’s research labs. The prosecutor said someone overseas might also be charged.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Barber sentenced Jonathan Rok Thyng, 48, to probation and 100 hours of community service. In July, Thyng pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and faced up to five years in federal prison. Prosecutors recommended leniency for Thyng because he promised to cooperate with investigators.

“I deeply regret my actions and fully understand the gravity of my conduct, as well as the trust I have broken as a citizen,” Thyng wrote in a letter to the judge. “My actions were inexcusable, and I recognize that they represent a serious violation of federal law.”

In the same letter, Thyng said he previously worked as an intelligence operations analyst in the U.S. Air Force.

Prosecutors said the smuggling network, which was active from July 2016 until May 2023, was strictly financial. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Marcet said the plot had no implications for national security.

“If there was a national security component to this, we’d be talking about a lot closer to five years,” Barber said.

According to court records, in the plot, the UF research employee and students ordered drugs and toxins from a major pharmaceutical company known as MilliporeSigma. Conspirators used their UF affiliation to order small amounts of highly purified research chemicals. Then, court records showed, they were secretly shipped from UF to China, often disguised as “diluting agents.”

The substances can’t legally be exported to China.

UF students were recruited in late 2022, prosecutors said, once the pharmaceutical company began requiring University of Florida email addresses to order the compounds.

At least one student involved was identified as Nongnong “Leticia” Zheng, the president of UF’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association. Zheng, a Chinese national, confirmed in an interview in May that she was the target of a grand jury investigation, and the Justice Department was preparing to seek criminal charges against her.

Zheng has not been charged and her whereabouts are unknown. She dropped out of classes at UF this semester, and the university banned her from campus for three years after her role in the plot was exposed. Zheng has said she was deceived and victimized by the scheme’s organizers, who she said solicited help finding paid interns from the Chinese student organization.

Thyng ordered biomedical substances and shipped some of the packages to China. He said he joined the illicit procurement network out of a personal favor to his friend Pen “Ben” Yu, described as the chief ringleader behind the operation. Thyng said he made between $3,000 and $5,000 for the two years he was involved, which he said was insignificant. He made more money working for Uber, he said.

“This was a very significant criminal conspiracy with some very high-level players,” Marcet said.

In August, U.S. District Judge William F. Jung sentenced Yu to nearly four years in federal prison plus three years of supervised release. Yu also was ordered to pay the equivalent of $100,000. He faced up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

In response to a question Wednesday from the judge, Marcet said other co-conspirators will likely face a new round of criminal charges. He said the government was still “looking at an international target” as well as another person he did not identify in court who worked in the university’s stockroom and facilitated Yu’s access to the packages.

Marcet declined to elaborate outside the courtroom on who might be criminally charged or when.

Among substances sent overseas include fentanyl, morphine, MDMA, cocaine, ketamine, codeine, methamphetamine, amphetamine, acetylmorphine, and methadone. Such small samples would generally be used for calibrating scientific or medical devices.

Conspirators also shipped what the government described as purified, non-contagious proteins of the cholera toxin and pertussis toxin, which causes whooping cough.

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Matthew Cupelli reports via Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at [email protected]. You can donate to support our students here.