Chinese National Sentenced to 20 Years for International Kidnapping

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Yanjun Xu, a Chinese national, received a 20-year prison sentence May 15 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky after a federal jury convicted him of international kidnapping.

The Justice Department stated that Xu, an officer in China's Ministry of State Security, targeted a Chinese citizen employed as an engineer by a major U.S. aviation company with access to sensitive aviation technology. Xu directed co-conspirators to lure the victim to Belgium under false pretenses of a job opportunity, planning to drug him and fly him to China for interrogation.

Belgian authorities arrested the victim in 2017 before the transfer occurred; Xu was arrested in 2018 while attempting to enter the United States at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

The scope of the case centers on one victim but forms part of a documented pattern of at least 12 similar Chinese government-linked abduction attempts against overseas Chinese nationals between 2016 and 2023, according to prior Justice Department filings in related cases. The victim in this matter worked on proprietary technology that the U.S. government has classified as export-controlled.

The sentencing changes Xu's status from pretrial detention to a 240-month term in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release. The court ordered full restitution to the victim, though the exact amount will be determined in a separate hearing scheduled for later this year.

The conviction rests on one count of conspiracy to commit international kidnapping under 18 U.S.C. § 1203 and 18 U.S.C. § 371.

Downstream, the sentence requires the Bureau of Prisons to designate a facility within 60 days and obligates the Justice Department to pursue asset forfeiture tied to the Ministry of State Security network identified during the investigation. It also compels the victim to appear at the restitution hearing, and it activates formal notification protocols to Congress under existing intelligence oversight statutes.

Federal prosecutors must now decide whether to unseal additional evidence that could support charges against unindicted co-conspirators still at large in China.

This marks the first time a Chinese intelligence officer has been sentenced in a U.S. court for directing an extraterritorial kidnapping plot against a private U.S.-based employee. The original indictment was returned in October 2018; the trial concluded in 2024 after multiple delays tied to classification reviews of the aviation technology at issue.

The Justice Department has brought parallel cases against Chinese operatives in New Jersey and California since 2020 using the same statute.