Late last year, federal agents arrested a 39-year-old northern California resident & Chinese national man, Yinpiao Zhou, for unlawfully flying his drone over the Vandenberg space force base.
Zhou is a chinese citizen, and is also a lawful permanent resident of the united states. On November 30, 2024, security staff at Vandenberg determined there was a drone flying overhead, and tracked it to Ocean Park, a public area near the base. There they found Zhou in the park with the drone concealed in his jacket.
He was arrested two days later at the San Francisco international airport prior to boarding a flight bound for China; on his cell phone, several pictures of the base were found, along with a Google search regarding the base’s drone rules.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 7th, and faces up to one year in prison and a 100 thousand dollar fine.
