Canadian deported from U.S. after admitting to drone spying at Trump Space Force base

A Canadian man has pleaded guilty to illegally photographing classified U.S. defence facilities at the Space Force military base in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Xiao Guang Pan, 71, of Brampton, Ont., pleaded guilty to three counts of unlawful photographing of military installations without authorization on three separate days in early January.

A U.S. District Court in Florida judge put Pan on probation for 12 months and immediately ordered him deported to Canada by U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Enforcement (ICE) officers under the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, citing his violations of American espionage laws.

Pan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A U.S. Department of Justice official was unsure about where Pan is in the ICE deportation process.

Pan’s guilty plea and deportation come as anxiety grows among U.S. lawmakers and ordinary Americans about hundreds of unidentified drones flying over sensitive American military bases amid concerns about foreign surveillance and spying.

A copy of Pan’s plea agreement reveals a stark contrast between what Pan said he was doing in Florida in January, when he was stopped by police, versus what U.S. federal agents actually found on his drone, phone and storage devices after seizing them.

On an artist biography page published by the Brampton Arts Organization, Pan stated he was born in China in 1953, immigrated to Canada in 2001 and has lived in Brampton since 2003.

Pan worked as a Best Buy Canada technician for 18 years until retirement in 2022, the biography adds.

Pan entered the U.S. on a tourist visa at the Ambassador’s Bridge in Detroit, Mich., on or about Nov. 2, 2024.  The court documents don’t suggest what Pan was doing or where Pan travelled in November and December.

The retiree was charged by summons on Feb. 11 after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) detected drone activity near the Space Force Base and called in law enforcement on Jan. 7.

Brevard County Sheriffs responded. They saw Pan operating a DJI Mavic Pro 3 unmanned drone quadcopter from a parking lot in Port Canaveral and learned he’d been in the area for three days.

The local officers then tipped federal law enforcement agencies.

Federal agents caught the Brampton resident using his powerful unmanned drone and a separate camera with telephoto lenses to photograph and video classified military facilities and equipment near the Space Force base on Jan. 5, 6 and 7, without the base commander’s prior authorization as required under U.S. law.

According to a statement of facts found in the plea agreement, which Pan signed and initialled on every page, U.S. federal agents interviewed him twice – no dates were given – and asked the Canadian what he was doing with the drone.

They also warned him: lying to federal agents is a federal crime in the U.S.

“Pan told the agents that he had flown his drone to take pictures of the beauty of nature, the sunrise, and the cruise ship port. He stated that he had not seen any launch pads and that he did not know that he was near a military installation,” the plea deal states.

Pan voluntarily submitted his devices to U.S. agents for a forensic data extraction.

That’s when the investigators found more than sunrises, nature and cruise ship videos.

The data showed Pan had flown his drone nine times and taken 1,919 photographs and videos during his three-day Florida visit, the plea deal states.

Of those 1,919 photos and videos, 243 photographs and 13 videos showed specific images of Space Force base military infrastructure and launch facilities, including fuel and munitions storage facilities, security checkpoints, and a Navy submarine platform, according to the plea agreement.

On Jan. 6, his second day of flying the drone quadcopter, Pan took nine videos and 166 photographs of Space Force installations.

This time, he launched his drone from a location several miles closer to the base; his photographs and videos captured the same military infrastructure as on Jan. 5, but in higher quality and from different angles, according to the plea agreement.

Pan also captured images and videos of mission control infrastructure and fuel and munitions facilities, including a photograph of a Space Launch Complex and payload processing facilities operated by two defence contractors.

On the third day of his drone flying, and before he was encountered by law enforcement, Pan recorded two more videos and took 56 photos.

His Day 3 images and videos showed roads, power distribution infrastructure, security checkpoints, mission control infrastructure, national security space launch infrastructure, fuel and munitions storage, and naval infrastructure, the plea agreement states.

After police stopped Pan on Jan. 7, federal agents interviewed him twice.

During those interviews, Pan was warned that lying to agents is a federal crime. He did so anyway, the plea deal suggests.

In addition to telling agents he flew his drone to record nature, sunrises, and cruise ships and didn’t know he was near a military base, Pan said his drone sends alerts and warnings to his handset and he received no alerts or warnings, the plea deal adds.

Investigators recovered flight log data from Pan’s quadcopter. It showed that on all three days he flew, the drone logged several alerts and sent operator messages about altitude and FAA airspace violations.

On Pan’s cell phone, agents also found several screenshots he created, including several Google Maps satellite overviews of Cape Canaveral.  One screenshot taken Jan. 7 while Pan was at his drone launch location, prominently displayed the words “Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.” 

Pan was charged in February after a multi-agency probe led by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Homeland Security, and the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

Pan surrendered his $5,000 quadcopter, control equipment and storage devices that housed his videos and photos to the U.S. authorities.

He is also banned from returning to the U.S. without prior consent from the Secretary of the Homeland Security department.