BELGRADE — Two men indicted by the United States for trying to smuggle sensitive military technology to China and organizing the harassment of a Chinese-American artist escaped house arrest in Serbia while awaiting extradition, and their whereabouts are unknown.
It is unclear when John Miller, a British citizen, and Cui Guanghai, a Chinese national, fled house arrest. The High Court in Belgrade announced on September 9 that an arrest warrant had been issued for the pair back on August 15, and then said on September 12 that the men are wanted under an international Interpol warrant and that a search for them is still under way.
The escape and ensuing search in Serbia is the latest development in a case that has stretched from San Francisco to Beijing and involves charges of arms smuggling and intimidating Hui Bo, a dissent artist who organized a protest criticizing Chinese leader Xi Jinping while he was in the United States in 2023 for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
“I was shocked and outraged when I learned that Cui Guanghai and John Miller disappeared from house arrest in Belgrade,” Hui, who currently resides in Los Angeles, told RFE/RL, adding that their escape “highlights serious risks” to his personal safety.
Miller and Cui were arrested in Belgrade in April at the request of the FBI while there on a business trip and then released under house arrest in May.
US court documents released through the indictment say Miller was caught in a sting by FBI agents where an operative posed as an arms dealer who the men allegedly solicited for the procurement of US defense equipment, including surface-to-air missiles, air defense radar, drones, and cryptographic devices for unlawful export to China.
Miller allegedly told an undercover agent that the equipment would be copied in China and that Beijing would pay two to three times the cost to acquire the hardware.
The two men have been charged in the United States with interstate stalking, conspiracy to commit interstate stalking, smuggling, and violations of the Arms Export Control Act. Together, the charges carry up to 40 years in prison.
It is not known if they are still in the country and the US officials had been coordinating for the two men’s pending extradition with their Serbian counterparts.
The US State Department declined to answer RFE/RL’s questions about the two men’s escape from house arrest.
Targeting Chinese Dissidents In The US
US authorities have not explicitly said Miller and Cui were working at the behest of the Chinese government to carry out the smuggling and harassment, and the US Attorney’s Office of the Central District of California previously said the indictment is “merely an allegation.”
“All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” the office said when the indictment was released in April.
But the indictment also includes phone calls and recordings with Miller and Cui –and Hui, the dissident artist, confirmed several of its details to RFE/RL.
Court documents also say Miller and Cui organized the harassment and intimidation of Hui, first on the sidelines of the 2023 APEC summit in San Francisco and again earlier this year.
The indictment alleges the pair enlisted two individuals in the United States to carry out a plot that would have stopped Hui from helping to organize a protest against Xi’s attendance at the economic forum where he would unveil half-naked sculptures he created of Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan.
Miller and Cui, however, were unaware that those two individuals were acting at the direction of the FBI.
“In the weeks leading up to the APEC summit, Cui and Miller directed and coordinated an interstate plan to track the victim, install tracking devices on the victim’s car, puncture the victim’s car tires, and purchase and destroy art statues made by the victim depicting President Xi and his wife,” the indictment states.
Hui told RFE/RL that he learned in 2023 that two people were being monitored by the FBI and he was informed that there were plans to destroy his sculptures and to attack him.
“They immediately arranged for my family and me to move to a safe place and provided free accommodation, which made me realize how real and urgent the threat was,” he told RFE/RL.
A similar series of events allegedly unfolded in 2025 when Hui announced in a public video that he planned to display new statues of Xi and his wife. Court documents say that Miller and Cui hired two other individuals to try and intimidate him from unveiling his new statues.
Those individuals were paid $36,000, but the indictment notes that they were both also affiliated with and acting at the direction of the FBI.