Yujing Zhang, the Chinese national who sparked security concerns after she allegedly talked her way into the president’s Mar-a-Lago country club, had in her hotel room thousands of dollars in cash, multiple sim cards and a device used to detect hidden cameras, prosecutors alleged Monday. At a detention
Yujing Zhang, the Chinese national who sparked security concerns after she allegedly talked her way into the president’s Mar-a-Lago country club, had in her hotel room thousands of dollars in cash, multiple sim cards and a device used to detect hidden cameras, prosecutors alleged Monday.
A public defender for Zhang, Robert Adler, pushed back in court against the idea Zhang was a spy and said she did not have the type of tools “associated with espionage activities” like lock-picking devices or Wi-Fi interception equipment. Adler declined to comment on the hidden camera-detecting device Tuesday, telling ABC News that under discovery rules the defense did not yet have access to it or any of the other items seized by investigators.
She went through a second Secret Service checkpoint, this one where she was screened by a magnetometer for weapons or explosives, before making her way to the club’s reception area. Only there did a receptionist discover Zhang was not on the club’s access list and called the Secret Service back. The complaint said that when Zhang was detained she had other electronics on her, including four cell phones, a laptop and a thumb drive that the Secret Service said a preliminary analysis showed contained some kind of malware.
James Mulvenon, a Chinese espionage expert, said the counter-surveillance equipment that prosecutors allege was found in Zhang’s hotel room make her “certainly more suspicious” as a potential counter-intelligence threat, but he said he was still skeptical of her connection to a professional espionage operation, considering what he called terrible tradecraft.
Former senior Department of Homeland Security official John Cohen, however, said the incident highlights a larger concern.
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