Feds: U. of Arkansas Prof Committed Fraud by Hiding Ties to Chinese Government

University of Arkansas Professor Simon Ang was arrested on Monday on charges that he failed to disclose a financial relationship with the Chinese government. The arrest following the January arrest of a chemistry professor at Harvard University for failing to disclose similar ties to the Chinese government.

According to a local news report, Professor Simon Ang of the University of Arkansas was arrested on Monday on wire fraud charges. Ang is the latest in a series of professors at American universities to be accused of unlawfully receiving funding from the Chinese government.

The criminal complaint claims that Ang, an electrical engineering professor, failed to report his financial relationship with the Chinese government when applying for grant money from NASA. Ang allegedly received funding from the Thousand Talents program, an initiative created by the Chinese government to provide grants to scientists outside of China in exchange for access to American research.

“In the one-count complaint, Ang was charged with one count of Wire Fraud.  The complaint charges that Ang had close ties with the Chinese government and Chinese companies, and failed to disclose those ties when required to do so in order to receive grant money from NASA,” a press release from the Department of Justice reads. “These materially false representations to NASA and the University of Arkansas resulted in numerous wires to be sent and received that facilitated Ang’s scheme to defraud.”

“We’re aware of the arrest and are cooperating with the investigation,” a university spokesperson said in a short statement.

Breitbart News reported in January that Harvard’s Chemistry Department Chairman Charles Lieber had been arrested for fraud over his ties to the Chinese government.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said in January that the Chinese government is willing to pay American professors large sums for access to American research. “This is a very carefully directed effort by the Chinese government to fill what it views as its own strategic gaps, and it uses its own citizens abroad,” Lelling said.