A Chinese couple are accused of trying to smuggle a crop-destroying fungus into the U.S.

Yunqing Jian, 33, allegedly attempted to illegally import Fusarium graminearum — a potent, toxic pathogen that causes blight and other diseases in crops like wheat, corn and rice — at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in July.

Inspectors found the “potential agroterrorism weapon” in small baggies wrapped in tissues in the backpack of Jian’s boyfriend, 34-year-old Zunyong Liu.

Both were said to have researched the fungus as students in China, according to prosecutors. Jian is a postdoctoral research scientist working at the University of Michigan’s Molecular Plant-Microbe Interaction Laboratory , while Liu works at a Chinese university where he conducts research on the same pathogen.

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