The Department of Justice announced on Monday that two people were arrested on allegations they participated in the operation of an illegal police station for the Chinese government in New York City.
Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping have been charged with conspiring to act as Chinese government agents, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York said. Both destroyed evidence of their communications with the Chinese national police when they learned about the investigation into their activity, according to Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, which he described as obstruction of justice.
"Two miles from our office just across the Brooklyn Bridge, this nondescript office building in the heart of bustling Chinatown in Lower Manhattan, has a dark secret. Until several months ago, an entire floor of this building hosted an undeclared police station of the Chinese National Police. Now, just imagine the NYPD opening an undeclared secret police station in Beijing. It would be unthinkable," Peace said.
The unofficial police station closed its office, a floor in a Chinatown office building, in the fall of last year when it became aware of the FBI's investigation, according to a DOJ release on the arrests. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP |
The station, in New York’s Chinatown, was allegedly run by Beijing’s ministry of public security to track Chinese dissidents
The FBI has arrested two men accused of running a covert station for China’s police force in New York, and using it as a base to track Chinese dissidents living in the US.
The station, in Manhattan’s Chinatown, was allegedly set up in February 2022 and operated by Beijing’s ministry of public security (MPS) as part of a campaign of transnational repression against Chinese pro-democracy activists and other political opponents around the world.
The justice department also announced charges on Monday against 40 MPS officers and four others for allegedly running an internet troll operation against dissidents in the US, creating fake social media accounts to harass them and recruiting an employee at an unnamed US telecoms company to have a pro-democracy activist removed from the platform. The officers, thought to be in China, are alleged to be members of an MPS unit, the “912 special project working group”, dedicated to the pursuit of dissidents abroad.
The alleged secret police station in New York was raided in October, and on Monday morning the FBI arrested two New Yorkers suspected of running it.
China has insisted that the New York site and similar offices around the world are run by volunteers and are not connected with the police. On Tuesday a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson again denied all accusations of an overseas police presence and accused the US of making “groundless accusations”.
Breon Peace, the US attorney for the eastern district of New York, said there was now evidence of direct ties between Chinese police and the New York site.
“Two miles from our office, just across the Brooklyn Bridge, this nondescript office building in the heart of bustling Chinatown in lower Manhattan had a dark secret until several months ago. An entire floor of this building hosted an undeclared police station of the Chinese national police,” Peace said. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to related stories:
US arrests two in connection with ‘secret’ Chinese police station in NY
US arrests two for setting up Chinese 'secret police station' in New York
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