Federal prosecutors have accused two foreign nationals of hiring people to harass and threaten a Los Angeles-based artist who publicly criticized Chinese President Xi Jinping, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday, May 30.
Cui Guanghai, 43, of China, and John Miller, 63, of the United Kingdom, were indicted by federal grand juries in Los Angeles and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on charges of interstate stalking, conspiracy, smuggling, and violations of the Arms Export Control Act, according to the DOJ.
Prosecutors contend the campaign against the Los Angeles resident —whose name was not released — began in October 2023 when Cui and Miller enlisted two people in the United States to stop the victim from protesting Xi’s appearance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco that November.
The victim had previously made public statements in opposition to the policies and actions of Xi and the People’s Republic of China, federal authorities said.
In the weeks leading up to the APEC summit, the defendants allegedly had the two people stalk the victim, install a tracking device on his car and slash the car’s tires. They also allegedly tried to buy and destroy a pair of statues created by the victim depicting Xi and the Chinese president’s wife, bare-chested and kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs, according to the Los Angeles indictment.
The statues were displayed on a billboard in Times Square in 2023, authorities said.
Court papers allege a similar scheme took place in the spring of 2025, after the victim announced that he planned to make public an online video feed depicting two new statues of Xi and his wife.
Cui and Miller, however, were unaware that the two people they had enlisted were “affiliated with and acting at the direction of the FBI,” according to the DOJ’s statement.
Federal prosecutors allege the suspects paid two other people nearly $36,500 to convince the victim not to display the statues. Officials said those two people were also working with the FBI.
“As alleged, the defendants targeted a U.S. resident for exercising his constitutional right to free speech and conspired to traffic sensitive American military technology to the Chinese regime,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.
“This is a blatant assault on both our national security and our democratic values,” he said. “This Justice Department will not tolerate foreign repression on U.S. soil, nor will we allow hostile nations to infiltrate or exploit our defense systems. We will act decisively to expose and dismantle these threats wherever they emerge.”
According to the Wisconsin indictment, Miller and Cui allegedly solicited the procurement of U.S. defense items, including missiles, air defense radar, drones, and cryptographic devices for unlawful export from the United States to China from two individuals.
The defendants allegedly discussed with the two others various methods to export a cryptographic device from the United States to China, including concealing the device in a blender, small electronics, or motor starter, and shipping the device first to Hong Kong, federal prosecutors allege.
Cui and Miller allegedly paid nearly $10,000 as a deposit for the cryptographic device via a courier in the United States and a wire transfer to a U.S. bank account, court papers state.
If convicted, Cui and Miller would face up to five years in prison for conspiracy, up to five years for interstate stalking, up to 20 years for violation of the Arms Export Control Act, and up to 10 years in prison for smuggling, prosecutors noted.
The defendants are currently in custody in Serbia, pending their extraditions.