Prosecutors on Monday unsealed an indictment against Gal Luft, the co-director of a U.S. think tank, charging him with acting as a Chinese agent and attempting to broker sales of weapons and Iranian oil.
The indictment charges Luft with eight counts, including failing to register as a foreign agent, evading oil sanctions, two counts of making false statements to investigators and three counts of illicit arms trafficking.
Republicans have touted Luft as an important witness in their investigation into the Biden family's financial dealings, part of which is probing Hunter Biden's alleged links to China. Rep. James Comer, the Republican chairman of the Oversight committee, called Luft "a very credible witness on Biden family corruption" in a tweet last week.
He was arrested in Cyprus on February 17, but fled after being released on bail while extradition proceedings were pending, prosecutors said in a statement.
Luft, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen and the co-director of the Maryland-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, remains a fugitive, prosecutors said.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams alleged that Luft had "subverted foreign agent registration laws in the United States to seek to promote Chinese policies by acting through a former high-ranking U.S. Government official."
His office wrote that while serving as the co-director of the think tank, Luft "agreed to covertly recruit...
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