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Professor Gang ChenMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) / YouTube

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MASSACHUSETTS, January 19, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) arrested and charged a 56-year-old Chinese born professor for fraud after he allegedly failed to disclose his dealings with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). 

The DOJ posted a press release last Thursday, which stated that Gang Chen, who works as a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was “charged and arrested” at his home in Cambridge. 

Chen was apprehended in connection with “failing to disclose contracts, appointments, and awards from various entities in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the U.S. Department of Energy.” 

According to the DOJ, he was charged with “wire fraud, failing to file a foreign bank account report (FBAR) and making a false statement in a tax return.”  The DOJ said that Chen has already made his first appearance before a judge last week.

The DOJ added that Chen is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in China. He current position is the Director of the MIT Pappalardo Micro/Nano Engineering Laboratory and Director of the Solid-State Solar Thermal Energy Conversion Center.

According to the DOJ, Chen’s research has received “approximately $29 million of foreign funding” since 2013, and that he has held “various appointments with the PRC designed to promote the PRC’s technological and scientific development by providing advice and expertise – sometimes directly to PRC government officials – and often in exchange for financial compensation.”

“This includes acting as an ‘overseas expert’ for the PRC government at the request of the PRC Consulate Office in New York and serving as a member of at least two PRC Talent Programs,” the DOJ said in their release. “Since 2013, Chen allegedly received approximately $29 million of foreign funding, including $19 million from the PRC’s Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech).” 

The DOJ alleges that Chen’s efforts to promote the PRC’s interests were in part detailed in a 2016 email that he sent to himself, from his MIT email address. 

From 2017 to 2019, Chen was serving in several advisory roles for the “PRC and PRC entities,” said the DOJ. 

At the time, Chen had applied and acquired a DOE grant, to fund some of his research at MIT. The DOJ said Chen “failed to disclose information about his ongoing affiliations with the PRC as required by DOE.” 

If found guilty of wire fraud, Chen could face up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, along with a fine of $250,000. 

For making false statements, the charges provide up to five years in jail, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000. 

The DOJ said that Chen also allegedly “failed to disclose to the IRS in his 2018 tax return that he maintained a bank account in the PRC with more than $10,000 in 2018.” 

In December, pro-abortion Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, was implicated in a Chinese spy scandal.

In an opinion piece from December 2020, Steven Mosher, an internationally recognized authority on China, said that many American politicians are under the influence of China. 

Mosher stated that “the scale of China’s influence operations inside the U.S. dwarfs anything that the Russians, or any foreign power, has ever attempted.”