‘PATTERN OF FRAUD’

Ex-Researcher at Cleveland Clinic Charged With Fraud for Allegedly Hiding Chinese Funding

Dr. Qing Wang, a National Institutes of Health grantee, “deliberately” failed to disclose his involvement in a Chinese program described as a threat to U.S. intellectual property.

A former doctor at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation was arrested on Wednesday for “deliberately” failing to disclose that he previously worked for a Chinese university and also received grant money from a Chinese government program, according to a criminal complaint. Dr. Qing Wang, who lives in Ohio, received more than $3.6 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health. The NIH said it funded Wang’s research at the foundation based on “false representations and promises.” The doctor “knowingly failed” to inform the medical research center that he was previously the dean at the College of Life Sciences and Technology at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, the complaint alleges. He also did not disclose that he was the grant recipient of the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Wang was also allegedly involved in the Thousand Talent Program, a Chinese recruitment program that U.S. officials have designated as a threat to U.S. intellectual property. Wang, who became a researcher at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 1997, “engaged in a pervasive pattern of fraud,” said FBI Cleveland Special Agent in Charge Eric B. Smith. “As this case demonstrates, Chinese government-supported talent plans continue to encourage people, regardless of nationality, to commit crimes, such as fraud to obtain U.S. taxpayer-funded research,” said Robert Wells, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division.