College Fix, the education watchdog, is following the investigation of a University of Florida student Nongnong Zheng after she and others were allegedly caught shipping dangerous drugs and toxins back to China.
Among those shipments is a toxin that causes whooping cough as well as analytical samples of fentanyl, morphine, MDMA, cocaine, ketamine, codeine, methamphetamine, amphetamine, acetylmorphine and methadone, according to court records.
Matt Lamb, associate editor of the College Fix, tells AFN the allegation is the students were purchasing the materials for laboratory research but were sending them to China instead.
The shipments went undiscovered for approximately seven years, according to an Associated Press story.
Lamb and the College Fix are following the story because the Fix previously reported on a law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023, that limits universities from recruiting students and faculty from China.
The goal of the legislation, DeSantis said last year, was to “counteract the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party in the state of Florida.”
“I think these charges illustrate what Governor DeSantis was trying to prevent,” Lamb says, “which is public universities being used unknowingly as a conduit by bad actors like the Chinese Communist Party."
Lamb points out that Zheng currently leads the Chinese Students and Scholars Association which publicly protested DeSantis and the new law last year.
Zheng told the AP she was deceived and victimized by others involved in the smuggling operation.
