SIUC math professor indicted in federal court for alleged grant fraud
A mathematics professor and researcher at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale was indicted in a federal court, accused of concealing support he was receiving from the Chinese government in order to obtain grant money in the U.S.
According to charging documents filed in the U.S. Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Mingquing Xiao, 59, of Makanda obtained a $151,099 federal grant from the National Science Foundation without disclosing his ties to an arm of the Chinese government and a conflicting commitment to Shenzen University.
He was charged Wednesday with two counts of wire fraud and a single count of making false statements.
Mandating such disclosures may protect research conducted at American universities from being stolen by other global competitors, said Assistant Attorney General John Demers in a release issued by the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
The prosecution is part of the DOJ’s China Initiative, a broad effort to counter Chinese national security threats and to protect American intellectual property.
“We know that China exploits American universities to further the aims of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Steven Weinhoeft, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. ”That’s one reason why the National Science Foundation requires applicants to disclose all sources of support, including foreign ties, as a condition to receive federal funding.
“Prosecutions like this one play a critical role, not just in protecting American investments in academic research from foreign exploitations, but also in combating the growing threat that China poses to our national security.”
According to the indictment, Xiao has worked in the SIUC mathematics department since 2000, focusing his research on partial differential equations, control theory, optimization theory, dynamical systems, and computational science. He received NSF grant funds for a project set to run from 2019 to 2022 without informing NSF about another, overlapping grant he had already received from the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China.
Xiao also allegedly failed to inform NSF that he was on the payroll of Shenzhen University, a public university in Guangdong Province, and that he had already committed to teaching and conducting research at Shenzhen University from 2018 to 2023.
The indictment further alleges that in March 2019, while his NSF grant proposal was still pending, Xiao submitted another grant proposal to the Natural Science Foundation of China. He applied for those funds as an employee of Shenzhen University and did not disclose the new Chinese proposal to NSF, the indictment states.
Xiao is charged with falsely certifying to SIUC that his NSF grant proposal was true, complete, and accurate.
Before awarding the grant, NSF questioned Xiao about any funding from “worldwide sources,” including specifically whether he held any position outside of the United States or had obtained funding from non-U.S. funding sources. The indictment accuses Xiao of falsely reporting to NSF that he had nothing else to disclose.
If convicted, Xiao faces up to 20 years in prison on each count of wire fraud and up to five years in prison for making a false statement. All three charges are also punishable by a fine of up to $250,000, according to the federal court.
“Again, an American professor stands accused of enabling the Chinese government’s efforts to corruptly benefit from U.S. research funding by lying about his obligations to, and support from, an arm of the Chinese government and a Chinese public university,” Demers said. “Honesty and transparency about funding sources lie at the heart of the scientific research enterprise. They enable U.S. agencies to distribute scarce grants for scientific research fairly and equitably. And they allow other researchers to evaluate potential conflicts of interest and conflicts of commitment.
“When researchers fall short of fulfilling these core academic values in ways that violate the law, the (DOJ) stands ready to investigate and prosecute.”
The investigation was conducted by the FBI, the IRS, and the Department of Homeland Security. Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter T. Reed is prosecuting the case, with assistance from NSD’s Counterintelligence & Export Section.
This story was originally published April 23, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
