More than a year after they were confronted in the dark near a remote Michigan military site where thousands of people had gathered for summer exercises, U.S. authorities reportedly charged five Chinese nationals with lying and attempting to conceal their tracks.
The five individuals, who were students at the University of Michigan at the time, were not prosecuted for the events that transpired at Camp Grayling in August 2023.
Rather, they are accused of deceiving investigators regarding the vacation and collaborating to delete photos from their phones, as per a criminal complaint submitted to federal court.
There have been instances of college students from China capturing photographs of critical defense sites in the United States, as indicated in the FBI’s court filing on Tuesday.
The court file did not indicate whether the five men were in custody. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office did not respond to emails requesting comment on Wednesday.
The FBI discovered that the men had reserved a room at a nearby motel a week prior to their discovery outside Camp Grayling, which is located 200 miles (321.8 kilometers) north of Detroit.
One of the men was interrogated by border officers at the Detroit airport four months later before traveling to China and South Korea.
According to the FBI, he informed investigators that he and others had traveled to northern Michigan in order to observe shooting stars.
Two images of military vehicles were discovered on his external hard drive on the same night as the encounter with the National Guard officer, according to the FBI.
After arriving in Chicago on a flight from Iceland, the remaining four males were interviewed in March of last year. They acknowledged their presence in northern Michigan in August 2023, but they claimed it was to observe a meteor shower the FBI stated.
According to investigators, the men engaged in discussions on WeChat in December of last year regarding the removal of photographs from their phones and cameras.
According to the FBI, all five of the males graduated from the University of Michigan last spring.
They were a component of a collaborative initiative between the university and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China.
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