As the saying goes: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” So what would one call it the fifth time it is discovered that someone affiliated with China deliberately violates the law to biologically threaten Americans?

The Justice Department recently announced that it has secured a guilty plea in the case of Youhuang Xiang, a Chinese citizen who was a postdoctoral researcher at Indiana University. Xiang attempted to smuggle “samples of DNA of E. coli bacteria” from China into the United States, admitting to mislabeling the package intentionally to ensure it would arrive. For this potential biological terrorism, Xiang has received a whopping sentence of at least four months in prison, a $500 fine, and one year of probation.