DETROIT – Five University of Michigan alumni were charged for allegedly taking photos of military vehicles and equipment at a base in Grayling, Michigan, and lying about their encounter with a soldier or being near anything military-related.
Background
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On Aug. 13, 2023, between 12:30 a.m. and 1 a.m., a group of five men were found at a boat launch on Bear Lake at Camp Grayling, a U.S. National Guard base in Michigan.
According to an affidavit submitted on Oct. 1, 2024, the encounter happened during one of the largest U.S. National Guard training exercises held in the United States, Northern Strike. The training included U.S. military personnel from across the nation and, in August 2023, members of the Taiwanese military.
A Sergeant Major, an active and uniformed member of the Utah National Guard, reportedly encountered the group while standing near numerous military vehicles, tents and classified communications equipment. The group, who were all wearing headlamps, had cameras and told the Sergeant Major they were taking pictures, with one of the men saying, “We are media.” They also said they were taking pictures of the night sky for a meteor shower.
The Sergeant Major described the five men as the following in the affidavit:
- “Subject 1 held a green sleeping mat. He had long black hair, glasses
- Subject 2 stood next to Subject 1. He wore a white hat and held a camera.
- Subject 3 also had long hair and was a little chubbier than the rest.
- Subject 4 was shorter. He had short black hair and acne scars on both cheeks.
- Subject 5 stood in the dark without a headlamp.”
The Sergeant Major told them to leave the area immediately. The group did so, with the Sergeant Major following them until he knew they were leaving the area, and checked into a Super 8 Motel in Grayling.
Who are the men accused?
Zhekai Xu, Renxiang Guan, Haoming Zhu, Jingzhe Tao and Yi Liang are Chinese nationals and were undergraduate students at the University of Michigan as part of the college’s joint program with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, located in Shanghai, China, until their graduation in May 2024. The program involved studying for two years at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and two years at the University of Michigan.
The men arrived in the United States to begin their studies at the University of Michigan in August 2022 and left the country after their graduation in May 2024.
Interviews following encounter
Guan was interviewed in December 2023 by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It’s reported that Guan did not mention the encounter with the Sergeant Major and denied interacting with the U.S. military.
Xu, Zhu, Liang and Tao were interviewed in March 2024 by FBI agents at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. All four confirmed a man approached them while they were at the campground, told officials they were taking pictures of a meteor shower and Guan was with them when it happened. The four told investigators in the interview that they had never been told to leave by the man and claimed they had left the area on their own.
The four also told officials that the stop at Bear Lake and checking into a Super 8 Motel after the encounter was not planned, calling it hasty and random. They initially planned to stay two nights in the Upper Peninsula but left a night early due to poor weather conditions. On their travel back to the Lower Peninsula, they stopped at a gas station and realized the weather was better. So, they drove to a nearby campground and found a hotel to stay the night in.
Xu, Zhu, Liang and Tao told the FBI they had no idea there were military vehicles and equipment in the area they were at and thought they were at a campground. Some of them thought the loud sounds in the area were fireworks as if people were celebrating something.
What investigators found
U.S. Customs and Border Protection took Guan’s electronic devices to continue their search while interviewing him in December 2023. There, they found a copy of two images from Guan’s external hard drive showing military vehicles on the media storage device taken on Aug. 12, 2023. According to the metadata in the pictures, they were taken about two hours before he and the rest of the group encountered the Sergeant Major.
According to the Sergeant Major who reportedly encountered the group, the area the military was training at was surrounded by caution tape and had signage indicating no trough traffic, do not enter, and troops passing. The training area was full of tents, antennae, satellite dishes, vehicles and generators. The Sergeant Major said the training equipment was visible from the area where the group was found.
The Sergeant Major also noted most of the vehicles were “military-colored” and marked, and the closest vehicle to where the group was found was about 15 feet away—stating that military activity was obvious in the area. He said there were also soldiers sleeping relatively near where the group was found.
The FBI said records from Super 8 Motel in Grayling showed that Xu reserved a room at the motel about a week before the encounter at the military base.
According to the FBI, an interview with Xu’s roommate and messages on WeChat, a Chinese messaging app, found on Liang’s electronic device revealed the group talked about their encounter with the soldier and their visit to the military base in Grayling.
Probable Cause
In the affidavit, officials believe Tao and Zhu made false statements or representations about seeing no military vehicles near Bear Lake.
Xu and Liang denied, in their interviews with the FBI, that they had never interacted with the military. Zhu, Xu and Liang also could not remember the name or place of the campground they stopped at. However, FBI agents found that Xu had told his friends on WeChat about how the soldier had encountered them and heard firework-like noises. Also, Tao told investigators they did encounter a soldier and was so scared of the encounter that he told his family and friends about it. Evidence shows Liang searched on Google on Aug. 13, 2024, on his phone “bear lake Michigan us army” and went to an article about the expansion of the Grayling Military Installation.
WeChat messages in a group chat archived from Liang’s phone include messages on Dec. 24 and Dec. 25 about clearing photos from their camera and phones and having others carry their electronics and cameras on their trip to Iceland.
The FBI said in the messages Guan told Liang, Zhu, Xu and Tao about his encounter with U.S. Customs and Border Protection questioning about their trip to Northern Michigan. Messages in the chat included Tao saying, “Let someone else take care of the electronic equipment then [meaning on the trip to Iceland].” Guan replied, “Clear all cameras.” Xu then wrote, “You can’t clear your phone. It shouldn’t be a big problem if you keep some normal photos.” Guan directly messaged Liang before his trip to Peru to “delete all messages from the group chat before crossing the border so that they would not think we are colluding.” Liang then left the group chat.
When the phones of Guan, Xu, Zhu and Tao were examined, there was no evidence of the WeChat group from Dec. 24 to 25. Officials believe the four deleted the app on their phones as WeChat is an app that maintains information in the app across devices.
Officials believe the group discussed their encounter with the Sergeant Major at Bear Lake, attempted to coordinate their stories and deleted potentially incriminating photos from their phones and camera to keep law enforcement from seeing them.
Charges the five men face
Each of the five men faces the following federal charges:
- False statements
- Conspiracy
- Destruction, Alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations
