A 41-year-old Hillsboro man pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to gather and transmit national defense information.
Ruoyu Duan was arrested at his home on March 6, 2025.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Duan conscripted two friends on active duty at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state — Capt. Li Tian and Sgt. Jian Zhao — to steal national security information and then sell it to Chinese nationals.
Duan joined the Army in 2014 and was medically discharged three years later after an on-duty injury and had been collecting Veterans Affairs disability benefits at the time of his arrest.
Duan acted as a middleman, identifying those who had information of value, making introductions, brokering transactions between the soldiers and Chinese nationals and transferring money between active soldiers and Chinese conspirators, Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Barrow said in prior court hearings.
According to the plea agreement, Tian maintained security clearance and was eligible to access secret-level material. In November 2021, Duan introduced Tian to a person identified as M.B., who was based in Hong Kong. Tian contacted M.B. for a “job opportunity” and agreed to write a white paper about investment opportunities. On Dec. 31, 2021, M.B. paid Tian $1,500 through Duan and asked Tian to write a second paper summarizing Tian’ s experience managing assets for the Army, according to the agreement.
Tian eventually stopped working directly for M.B. and began providing sensitive information to Duan through exchanges they called “lessons,” the agreement said. The lessons referred to sensitive Army documents and information as “teaching materials” and Duan’s payments to Tian as “tuition,” according to the agreement.
Tian provided Duan with what prosecutors called, “open-source intelligence reports,” documents related to the Army’s Stryker Brigade Combat Teams and technical manuals for an armored vehicle. These materials were subject to distribution controls due to their sensitive nature, according to the government.
Duan then transmitted information related to the national defense to M.B. and others not entitled to receive it, according to the plea agreement.
Duan also connected Zhao, an active-duty sergeant, to Chinese buyers and facilitated financial transactions between Zhao and the buyers, according to the agreement.
During a search of Duan’s Hillsboro home, investigators seized electronic devices, including cellphones and computers with 27 files containing intelligence reports that matched the descriptions of the cloud server files Tian sent Duan, the plea agreement said.
Tian and Zhao have pleaded not guilty to bribing a public official, receiving stolen government property and conspiring to gather, transmit and lose national defense information.
During a prior court hearing, Duan’s initial defense lawyer Conor Huseby argued that Duan was “targeted by sophisticated Chinese intelligence officers, posing as private contractors or headhunters looking to hire American personnel as security consultants.” The information Duan passed along was unclassified, some of it even publicly available and often years out of date —“none of which pose a legitimate threat to public safety,” Huseby had argued.
Duan is now represented by Assistant Federal Public Defender Peyton Lee.
Duan is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 19 before U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut.
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