A Chinese national living in Northern California has been arrested on suspicion of flying a drone over the Vandenberg Space Force Base and taking photos of the facility, the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday. Yinpiao Zhou, 39, a Chinese national legally resident in the U.S., in Brentwood, Contra Costa County, has been charged with failure to register an aircraft not providing transportation and violation of national defense airspace, the Justice Department said in a statement.
He was arrested at San Francisco International Airport on Tuesday as he prepared to board a flight to China and was due in court on Wednesday.
An affidavit filed Dec. 8 says that on Nov. 30, the base’s drone detection systems were alerted that a drone was flying over the base.
“The drone systems detected that the drone flew for nearly an hour, traveled to an altitude of nearly a mile above ground level, and originated from Ocean Park,” the Justice Department said.
Base staff spoke with Zhou that day, the department said, noting that he was accompanied by another person. They discovered that he had hidden the drone in his jacket at the time.
After obtaining a federal search warrant, agents searched Zhou’s drone and found several photos of the Space Force base taken by the drone, the government said.
“A search of Zhou’s cell phone revealed that about a month earlier, Zhou had conducted a Google search for the phrase ‘Vandenberg Space Force Base Drone Rules’ and messaged another person about hacking his drone to making him fly higher than he otherwise could,” the release said. said.
The Justice Department said Zhou is a Chinese citizen with legal residency in the US. He returned to the US from a visit to China in February 2024. The statement said the person found with Zhou in November had arrived from China just days earlier.
If convicted, Zhou faces a maximum sentence of four years in federal prison. The FBI is assisting with the investigation.
