Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, May 11, 2020

University of Arkansas Professor Arrested for Wire Fraud

They be cracking down on a lot of Chinese professors, scientists and doctors

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, David Clay Fowlkes, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, and FBI Special Agent in Charge Diane Upchurch of the FBI Little Rock Field Office announced today that Simon Saw-Teong Ang, 63, of Fayetteville, Arkansas, was arrested on Friday, May 8, 2020, on charges related to Wire Fraud. The complaint and complaint affidavit were unsealed this evening after Ang’s initial appearance in court before The Honorable Timothy L. Brooks at the United States District Court in Fayetteville.

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. 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.

If convicted, Ang faces a statutory maximum punishment of 20 years in prison. If convicted, Ang’s sentence will be determined by the court after review of factors unique to this case, including Ang’s prior criminal record (if any), the Ang’s role in the offense and the characteristics of the violations.

The FBI is investigating the case. Acting U.S. Attorney David Clay Fowlkes from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Arkansas and Trial Attorneys Michael Eaton and Ali Ahmad from the National Security Division are prosecuting the case.

A federal complaint is a written statement of the essential facts of the offenses charged and must be made under oath before a magistrate judge. The charges set forth in a complaint are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/university-arkansas-professor-arrested-wire-fraud

Former Cleveland Clinic Employee and Chinese “Thousand Talents” Participant Arrested for Wire Fraud

May 14, 2020

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney Justin E. Herdman of the Northern District of Ohio, and FBI Cleveland Special Agent in Charge Eric B. Smith announced a former Cleveland Clinic employee was arrested yesterday without incident by law enforcement and had his initial court appearance today.

Dr. Qing Wang, a former Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF) employee, is charged with false claims and wire fraud related to more than $3.6 million in grant funding that Dr. Wang and his research group received from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

According to the criminal complaint, Dr. Wang knowingly failed to disclose to NIH that he had an affiliation with and held the position of Dean of the College of Life Sciences and Technology at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) and received grant funds from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (CNSF) for some of the same scientific research funded by the NIH grant. As a result, Dr. Wang’s false representations and promises led NIH to approve and fund grants to Dr. Wang and his research group at CCF.

It is also alleged that Dr. Wang participated in the Thousand Talents Program, a program established by the Chinese government to recruit individuals with access to or knowledge of foreign technology and intellectual property. As a result of his admission into the TTP, China provided $3 million in research support to enhance the facilities and operations at HUST. Dr. Wang received free travel and lodging for his trips to China, to include a three-bedroom apartment on campus for his personal use. This also occurred at the time Dr. Wang was receiving NIH grant funds yet failed to disclose this affiliation to the NIH.

This case was investigated by the Cleveland Division of the FBI and the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General and is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office – Northern District of Ohio.

A charge is not evidence of guilt. A defendant is entitled to a fair trial in which it will be the government's burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-cleveland-clinic-employee-and-chinese-thousand-talents-participant-arrested-wire-fraud

__Child Predator Jailed for Life

The FBI Pursues Child Sexual Abuse Offenders with Tenacity__

When FBI Indianapolis Special Agent Ryan Barrett was the newest member of the field office’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, a more seasoned agent wanted to show him what they were up against.

“We had a program that tracked the use of a file-sharing program popular with people trading images of child sex abuse,”

Barrett said. “The agent asked the database to show a dot for every user in the state of Indiana. The whole map lit up red

Barrett stressed that those results are not unique to Indiana—any populated area in the United States and many other countries would show some number of people viewing and trading this content.

“I could be working these cases 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year,” Barrett said.

Though the scale is daunting, it doesn’t stop task forces supported by the FBI from trying to put an end to child exploitation. “No one is going to rest until kids are safe,” Barrett said.

Every case matters, but after 11 years on the task force, Barrett knows to prioritize cases that will make the greatest impact. That means pursuing large trading networks and groups, going after the people who are producing the materials, and tracking online predators engaged in sextortion.

It is work that often requires patience and tenacity.

Several years ago, Barrett got a tip from a Ukrainian citizen concerned about the activity of Charles Skaggs, Jr., an American who claimed to be running a non-profit for Ukrainian orphans. There wasn’t much in the tip for the FBI to go on, but the name of Skaggs’ organization raised immediate alarm.

The name of the so-called orphanage was the same as a widely circulated series of child abuse videos. “The fact that this guy names his orphanage after that—the second I saw it I was like, ‘Oh no,’” Barrett recalls.

At the time, it was difficult for Ukrainian authorities to help the investigation because the country was consumed with a war. So Barrett asked for the support of Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Customs and Border Protection in monitoring Skaggs’ trips in and out of the country. It was then a matter of keeping tabs on Skaggs and waiting.

In December 2016, more than a year after the FBI received the tip, agents from Homeland Security Investigations and Customs and Border Protection stopped Skaggs for additional screening when he arrived at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport from Ukraine. When asked if he had additional cell phones, electronics, computers, hard drives, thumb drives, or any other computer equipment on him or in his luggage, Skaggs told agents he did not.

But in their search, the agents uncovered several thumb drives from his bag that were later found to contain child sexual abuse images, including videos Skaggs had made of a child who often stayed in his Indiana home.

While he was in detention awaiting trial, Skaggs asked his son to retrieve a hard drive he had hidden in the ceiling of his apartment building’s laundry room. That hard drive also contained images of child sexual abuse.

Skaggs was tried in July 2019 and convicted of nine counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, two counts of possession of child pornography, and one count of concealment of evidence. He was sentenced to life in prison on January 30, 2020.

Barrett said judges in Indiana and across the country are recognizing the seriousness of these offenses and handing down lengthy sentences to offenders. He said that should be a warning to anyone who is hurting children or viewing the photos and videos that document their abuse.

Barrett’s other warning is to parents and caregivers: Make sure you’re talking to your children regularly as they spend time online. His plea carries even more urgency as children across the country are relying on the internet more as classes and assignments have moved online.

“The web is great for so many good things, but it’s really bad for a few really bad things,” Barrett said. One of the bad things, he said, is allowing child predators easy, immediate access to millions of children.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/child-predator-jailed-for-life-042220