Florida students implicated in illegal scheme to ship drugs to China

A University of Florida research employee and students have been implicated in an illegal, multi-million dollar scheme that saw samples of dangerous drugs and toxins illicitly shipped to China over a period of seven years. The scheme, investigated by the Justice Department, saw thousands of biochemical samples bought illegally which were then delivered to a campus laboratory before being shipped overseas, according to federal court records. Among the students tied to the scheme was the president of UF's Chinese Students and Scholars Association, Nongnong 'Leticia' Zheng (pictured left).

The group openly protested a Florida law signed by Gov. Ron De Santis last year that limits universities from recruiting students and faculty from China — and bans employing such students from working in academic labs without special permission. Zheng has confirmed that a federal prosecutor notified her last year in writing she was the target of a grand jury investigation, and the Justice Department was preparing to seek criminal charges against her. She said she has been assigned a federal public defender, Ryan Maguire of Tampa and noted how government agents have threatened to imprison or deport her.

It's not clear if the UF research employee or other students — identified in court records as co-conspirators — been charged or arrested yet. The UF employee worked in the stockroom of one of the university's research labs, prosecutors said. The materials smuggled to China included what the government described as purified, non-contagious proteins of the cholera toxin and pertussis toxin, which causes whooping cough.

Cholera is a generally non-fatal intestinal infection that can cause severe dehydration. Whooping cough is a highly contagious bacterial infection that can lead to violent coughing, vomiting and even respiratory distress — but is preventable with a vaccine. Other materials smuggled to China in the scheme included small amounts of highly purified drugs – known as analytical samples — of fentanyl, morphine, MDMA, cocaine, ketamine, codeine, methamphetamine, amphetamine, acetylmorphine and methadone, court records showed. Such small samples would generally be used for calibrating scientific or medical devices. The substances cannot be legally be exported to China.

Prosecutors described one student involved as a Chinese citizen majoring in marketing in the business college last year, who agreed to change her UF email signature to falsely represent that she was a biomedical engineering student to purchase items without raising suspicions, court records showed. One line across hundreds of pages of court documents in the case cited an excerpt of an email that her first name was 'Leticia' (pictured).

Zheng (pictured), a senior marketing major in the business school, is president of the Chinese students and scholars group, which describes itself as officially approved by the Chinese embassy. Zheng was enrolled as recently as the spring semester that just ended, university records showed. Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, identified 'Leticia' as Zheng using biographical clues in university records shared by none of the other 58,441 UF students enrolled last semester.

Zheng (pictured), who said she lived most of her life in China, said she was deceived and victimized by the scheme's organizers, who she said solicited help finding paid interns from the Chinese student organization. Foreign students on educational visas are limited in how or whether they can work for pay. 'This case seems to be really big,' she said. 'What I was doing was, like, just a little work, and I didn't get paid that much.' Zheng said in hindsight, she noticed red flags such as a lack of paperwork or consistent payments for the administrative work she did. She said she wasn't familiar with the substances she was directed to order.

The man described as the scheme's ringleader — who has pleaded guilty in the case — reassured her, and she didn't realize she was in trouble until the Justice Department contacted her, she said. Zheng said she hopes to be allowed to finish her degree and said she doesn't understand how the university didn't have policies in place to protect her. 'I do need help, honestly,' she said, adding: 'I would like to see if there's anything that can help me not get charged and get out of this whole mess.' Earlier this year, Zheng's organization issued a statement calling Florida's new law restricting Chinese students in university labs as 'nationality-based discrimination' and said it violates principles of academic freedom and openness and impedes international exchanges.

The scheme's organizers also paid UF students other than Zheng to allow use of their UF email addresses to order the substances, prosecutors said. Organizers paid the UF research employee with Home Depot gift cards worth hundreds of dollars and paid for trips and loans, court records showed. Prosecutors said organizers also used the email addresses of two UF researchers who had already left the university by 2015. They were not described as co-conspirators. The university said in a statement that it has been cooperating with the Justice Department for weeks but declined to answer directly whether anyone has been fired or kicked out of UF.

'We will have more details to share regarding UF's administrative actions as the DOJ's criminal case unfolds,' spokesman Steve Orlando said. 'Employees who break the law will be separated from employment, and students who break the law will face suspension.' The scheme ran from July 2016 to May 2023, the government said. Former Republican Sen. Ben Sasse (pictured) — a leading China hawk on Capitol Hill who once described the threat from Beijing as the 'defining national-security challenge of our age' — took over as the university's president in February 2022. The plot was sure to supercharge the raging policy debate over countering China's ascension as a global power and curtailing its influence.

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