The strange and twisted tale of how China spied on Alyssa Liu and her father

On November 16, In 2021, Matthew Ziporis sat in his car in a Bay Area residential neighborhood chasing an “enemy,” as he put it. Ziporis, a U.S. Army and Marine Corps veteran, previously served in Iraq. But on this mission, he was working on request Government of China. The targets that fall day were American citizens: Arthur Liu and his teenage daughter, Alyssa.

Arthur’s personal story was a model of the American dream. As a university student, he participated in the 1989 pro-democracy movement in China. After the crackdown on Tiananmen Square That year, he fled to the United States and settled in California. Arthur poured a small fortune and an equal amount of energy into turning Alyssa into a figure skating phenomenon. As a national champion at the age of 13, she joked with Jimmy Fallon tonight show, He was at the time on track to represent America at the following year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Arthur says that Ziporis was monitoring Liu’s house when he called Arthur, falsely claiming that he was a member of the US Olympic Committee and needed to discuss upcoming travel to Beijing. Ziporis was adamant about faxing copies of his and his daughter’s passports to Arthur as part of a “readiness check” to travel, Liu told WIRED. This struck Arthur as strange. During his long years of work with sports bodies, he had never submitted such a request. Alissa’s agent did not respond to a request for comment.

Ziporis’ surveillance of Arthur and Alyssa Liu on that November day five years ago was just one episode in a bizarre saga that stretched from California to Beijing, affected New York City mayors and members of the US Congress, saw two people plead guilty and two others await trial.

Unbeknownst to Ziporis, while he was sitting outside Arthur and Alyssa’s house in Northern California, he was also being watched.

Ziburis was allegedly sent to Northern California by Frank Liu, a Chinese community coordinator from Long Island, New York, who in turn was taking orders from someone in China named Chiang Sun. According to US authorities, Sun was working at the request of the Chinese government. The private investigator in question who had previously worked for Frank Liu had alerted the FBI to Frank’s adventures and was assisting the authorities. Law enforcement was already present in Ziburis by the time he arrived. Anthony Rico, Ziporis’ attorney, did not respond to requests for comment.

Officers watched Ziporis survey Arthur’s home and visited his law office. The heavy man walking around Arthur’s office caught the attention of a neighbor, who approached Ziporis and asked if he needed help, Arthur says. Apparently, the FBI called Arthur to warn him that Ziporis was headed to his house. By then, partly because of the harassment, Arthur and Alyssa were boarding a plane to travel from California. “It was like a movie,” Arthur says.

Alyssa’s show in Beijing in 2022 was a disappointment. I burned out and retired from the sport. then In Februaryafter Back to the ice After a two-year hiatus, Alyssa became the first U.S. figure skater to win Olympic gold since 2002 — intentionally without her father by her side.

Despite her complex, highly publicized relationship with Arthur, Alyssa’s success—punctuated by her signature piercing smile, raccoon tail dye, and obvious joy for her sport—has reignited interest in the long-standing case of transnational oppression against her and her father. Human rights advocates and researchers in recent years have documented efforts by Beijing to suppress critical voices, even those who reside abroad or whose perceived transgressions date back decades.