Owner of NJ sushi joint nabbed by ICE after being convicted of spying for China

An alleged sushi-slinging spy is in ICE custody. 

Ming Xi Zhang, known as “Sushi John,”  the 61-year-old owner of Ya Ya Noodles in Montgomery Township, NJ, was arrested March 24 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark.

Zhang was convicted in April 2024 of acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government and sentenced to three years’ probation. In May 2021, he pleaded guilty to having served as an agent of China in 2016 without notifying the U.S. Attorney General.

ICE says he legally entered the U.S. in 2000 but later “violated the terms of his lawful admission.”

“Any illegal alien conducting activities related to espionage, sabotage or export control against the United States is subject to deportation,” said ICE Newark Field Office Director John Tsoukaris.

Zhang met with Chinese security officials in the Bahamas in 2016 and delivered $35,000 to an unnamed individual in New Jersey, according to NJ.com. He also admitted to twice hosting a Chinese government agent at his Princeton home that fall.

He’s being held at the Elizabeth Detention Center awaiting immigration proceedings, a worker at his restaurant told the Post on Saturday.

“He’s doing good, I mean, given the circumstances,” the worker said. “But yeah, he’s just kind of waiting… to get let out.”

The community surrounding Zhang’s restaurant has apparently rallied around him and his restaurant in the days since his arrest. 

“The whole town has been really supportive,” the worker said. “Everyone’s been coming in, offering phone numbers, talking to his family . . . everyone’s really supportive.”

His arrest comes as ICE ramps up deportations under President Donald Trump’s renewed enforcement push for mass removals and expanded detention authority over illegal immigrants.

The legal landscape remains in flux: just last week, the Supreme Court on Thursday sided in part with Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a noncitizen who had been deported despite an active appeal — instead sending the case back to the lower courts to clarify whether the government has “facilitated” or intends to facilitate his return. 

U.S. District Judge Paul Xinis chastised Justice Department lawyers Friday over the government’s stubbornness to comply, while the Trump administration has alleged Abrego Garcia has MS-13 gang ties and has disputed the scope of the words “facilitate” and “effectuate” in the judge’s order.

Meanwhile, in a separate case, an immigration judge ruled that Mahmoud Khalil — flagged by the State Department as a national security concern stemming from his pro-Palestine picketing on Columbia’s campus — can be deported, though his case also remains under review.

The Post did not receive a response from Zhang’s attorney Robert Hazzard.