Chinese woman’s secret arrest in United States hints at wider sanctions probe

Two months before Canada arrested a top Huawei executive on alleged US sanctions violations, a Chinese national was detained in the Washington, DC on similar suspicions

But while Meng Wanzhou’s case received heavy media attention, the US kept the detention of Liu ‘Willow’ Yang under wraps

4-MIN READ4-MIN

Liu ‘Willow’ Yang admitted to helping ship more than US$870,000 worth of US electronics to Iran over a six-year period. Photo: Handout

Published: 11:13pm, 11 May 2019Updated: 12:20am, 12 May 2019

United States authorities were sitting on a sensitive secret last December when Canada detained a top Huawei Technologies executive on alleged US sanctions violations.

Two months earlier, the US had arrested another Chinese national on similar suspicions and was holding the woman at a grim jail in Washington, DC. An employee of an unidentified Chinese technology company, she had been arrested on holiday in California.

The employee, Liu “Willow” Yang, 29, ultimately pleaded guilty and went back to China. But unlike the legal spectacle in Canada over the extradition and prosecution of Huawei’s chief technology officer Meng Wanzhou, the Yang matter remains largely under wraps in the US.

Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou was arrested in December 2018 in Canada. Photo: Reuters

Yang had at least one co-conspirator, according to newly unsealed portions of the case, suggesting that the US may be pursuing a wider crackdown on sanctions violations than was previously known.

The prosecution of Yang is the third known instance of the US going after Chinese technology companies or their employees for trading with Iran and other countries blacklisted by the US on terrorism, national security or human rights grounds.