Two Chinese citizensThey were arrested this Monday accused of directing asecret police station in New York, while 44 citizens of that Asian country were accused of participating in harassment and repression plans directed against opponents of Xi Jinping's government based in the United States.
Lu Jianwang, 61 years old, resident of the Bronx, andChen Jinping, 59, of Manhattan, are accused of establishing the first overseas police station in the United States on behalf of the Fuzhou branch of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MSP), the Justice Department said in a statement.statement official.
"The People's Republic of China (PRC), through its repressive security apparatus, established a secret physical presence in New York City tomonitor and intimidate dissidentsand those who criticize his government," said Deputy Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department's National Security Division.
The secret police station, which was located in an office building in Chinatown, was closed in the fall of 2022 after those who ran it learned of the investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
FBI agents raided the police station last October and also seized mobile phones belonging to Lu and Chen.
Agents found evidence that communications between the two men with a Ministry of Public Safety official had been deleted after learning of the Justice Department investigation, federal prosecutors said, something the defendants admitted in interviews with the FBI.
Lu and Chen were arrested at their homes. They are expected to be prosecuted on two charges:conspiracy to act as agents of the People's Republic of China andobstruction of justice.
It was unclear whether the two men had hired attorneys.
"It is simply outrageous that China's Ministry of Public Security thinks it can get away with establishing a secret, illegal police station on American soil to aid its efforts toexport repression and subvert our rule of law," said FBI Counterintelligence Division Acting Deputy Director Kurt Ronnow.
"This case serves as a powerful reminder that the People's Republic of China will stop at nothing to bend people to its will and silence messages they don't want anyone to hear," he added.
If convicted of conspiring to act as agents of the PRC, the defendants face a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
The obstruction of justice charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
In addition to the charges against the two men in New York, theJustice Department also filed two other criminal complaints in federal court in Brooklyn charging that44 Chinese citizens of harassing dissidents of Xi Jinping's government based in the United States.
The defendants, including 40 MSP officials and two Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) officials, allegedly perpetrated transnational repression plans targeting residents in the United States whose political opinions and actions are unfavorable to the Chinese government. RPC, as the defense of democracy in that country.
One of the complaints against 34 Chinese national police officers describes a proposal by the Ministry of State Security for a massive data mining project aimed at collect negative comments about China on Twitter and hunt down the people who made them, wherever they live, using "a database of email and phone IDs."
The complaint also claims that China continues to spread propaganda on social media through "anonymized fake accounts that often appear to belong to users outside the PRC," the People's Republic of China.
The other case involves about 10 people accused ofinterrupt meetings on the platform of an unnamed American telecommunications company commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, tocensor political and religious speechof persons located in the United States and elsewhere by order of the PRC government.
The 44 defendants are believed to live in China and remain at large.
What do you think?
SEE COMMENTS (1)Filed in: