A Chinese woman named Yujing Zhang was arrested after allegedly trying to sneak into Mar-a-Lago in March. In her hotel room, investigators found suspicious equipment like a thumb drive containing malware.
There's not a lot of other information about her, but Mother Jones reports that Zhang has mysterious ties to a man named Charles Lee.
Although Lee did not respond to the magazine for comment, they were able to trace Lee's influence to various shady enterprises, including multiple groups that use the United Nations brand to prove legitimacy, despite not being formally associated with the international body.
“Unfortunately many organizations around the world wrongfully claim an affiliation with the UN and then try to exploit it commercially,” a UN spokeswoman told Mother Jones. “It’s kind of like playing whack-a-mole to get them to cease and desist.”
The organizations do not appear to be legitimate businesses, Mother Jones notes.
A business entity called the United Nations Peace Development Bank Ltd. was registered in Colorado in 2016 as a for-profit corporation. And the United Nations Fund for Peace and Development was also registered in Colorado that same year. (Its name resembled that of a real UN organization: the United Nations Peace and Development Trust Fund, which was also established in 2016, following a pledge by the Chinese government to contribute $200 million to the United Nations over 10 years.) A Google search found no major activity for these two entities with UN-related names.
It's not entirely clear what Zhang's association with Charles Lee -- who has previously referred to himself as Prince Charles -- might mean for her case or its significance to the Trump administration. But it adds another layer of mystery to Zhang's break in.
