Ruoyu Duan, a 41-year-old Hillsboro resident, pleaded guilty Wednesday, Sept. 16, to conspiring to gather and transmit national defense information to people in China.

Duan, a former U.S. Army soldier, faces up to 10 years in federal prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine, KOIN reported. His sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 10.

Duan served in the Army from 2013 to 2017 and was trained to handle sensitive and classified military information. After leaving the service, he conspired with others to gather sensitive military information on the Army's operational capabilities, including training materials, technical manuals and intelligence reports, according to court documents.

He also paid active-duty soldiers and others to collect equipment and information on U.S. military weapon systems, officials said. He then transferred information on Army combat vehicles to individuals in China.

According to a Department of Justice press release issued in March 2025, the conspiracy ran from about Nov. 28, 2021, to at least Dec. 19, 2024. The scheme stretched across the District of Oregon and other locations.

A federal grand jury in Portland indicted Duan and Li Tian, an active-duty Army officer stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, in March 2025. Both were charged with conspiring to commit bribery and theft of government property. The indictment alleged Tian was specifically tasked with gathering information on the Bradley and Stryker fighting vehicles and transmitting it to Duan in exchange for money.

The FBI arrested Duan the next day.

The FBI and the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Command investigated the case. When the arrests were announced on March 6, 2025, Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi said the defendants were "accused of betraying our country, actively working to weaken America's defense capabilities and empowering our adversaries in China."

Brig. Gen. Rhett R. Cox, commanding general of Army Counterintelligence Command, said at the time that the arrests "underscore the persistent and increasing foreign intelligence threat facing our Army and nation."

The case is being prosecuted by assistant U.S. attorneys Geoffrey Barrow and Katherine Rykken for the District of Oregon, along with trial attorneys Christopher Cook and Yifei Zheng of the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.

The current status of co-defendant Li Tian's case was not available in public records as of Wednesday.