What Was the Chinese Woman Arrested at Mar-a-Lago Really Up To? A Former Spy Helps Us Figure It Out.

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/20/mar-a-lago-chinese-woman-226671

By ALEX FINLEY
Politico.com
April 20, 2019

What was a Chinese woman doing at Mar-a-Lago with her pockets full of passports 
and cellphones? The March 30 arrest of Chinese national Yujing Zhang at 
President Donald Trump’s vacation home certainly reads like a juicy spy drama. 
At the time she was arrested, after changing her story about why she was there, 
she had on her, in addition to two Chinese passports and four cellphones, a 
laptop and USB drive later found to contain some kind of malware. More devices 
and $8,000 in cash were later found in her room at a nearby hotel.

Is Chinese intelligence attempting to infiltrate Mar-a-Lago? The answer to that 
is almost certainly yes. And so is every other foreign intelligence service. 
That’s just business as usual.

But is Zhang part of the Chinese effort?

U.S. law enforcement is still trying to figure that out. Earlier this month, 
Zhang was charged with lying to a federal officer and entering restricted 
property, but prosecutors have said more charges might follow. For now, 
prosecutors are treating Zhang’s case as a national security matter, according 
to the Miami Herald, adding that a team of FBI counterintelligence officers is 
on the case. According to the Herald, federal investigators were already 
looking into Chinese intelligence operations in South Florida before this 
incident occurred. Zhang’s arrest “has sent the counterintelligence probe into 
overdrive.”

As a former CIA officer, I am intrigued by Zhang’s role but wary of jumping to 
conclusions about it, given the limited facts we know so far. Here are five 
questions that might help us determine whether Zhang is a bumbling Chinese spy 
who got caught trying to infiltrate the president’s vacation lair or if she is 
simply an innocent tourist who loves her hi-tech devices.

[...]

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