A New York man has admitted to acting as an illegal Chinese agent by operating a secret police station for Beijing in Manhattan.
Chen Jinping, a 60-year-old U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty on Dec. 18 in front of U.S. District Judge Nina Morrison, a development that prosecutors lauded as the latest progress in countering the Chinese regime’s transnational repression scheme.
He faces up to five years in prison.
The New York site runs under the cover of a Chinese organization called the American ChangLe Association in Manhattan’s Chinatown. The association ostensibly serves as a mingling place for immigrants from China’s southeastern Fujian Province, where the namesake district, ChangLe, is based.
The station was set up in mid-February 2022 and had since assisted an official from China’s Ministry of Public Security, the country’s police apparatus, to locate a person of interest, a California pro-democracy advocate who had served as an advisor to a 2022 congressional candidate from New York State, the federal complaint states.
Weeks before the station came into being, Lu forwarded a notice to Chen that stated: “in order to establish a smooth connection to the remote checkup identification renewal system every overseas service station has to grant access privileges to the 110 system,” according to the court document.
The number 110 is synonymous with police in China.
Xi Jinping’s Visit
Federal prosecutors said their investigation found Lu had a longstanding relationship of trust with Chinese authorities.In 2015, during Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s trip to Washington, Lu, along with other local Chinese association leaders, dispatched members of their organizations to participate in counter-protests against public demonstrations by practitioners of Falun Gong. The faith group, persecuted in China since 1999, was attempting to protest the regime’s ongoing suppression.
The court document included a photo showing Lu holding a plaque with a Chinese police official celebrating his work “in ensuring that members of the Falun Gong religion did not disturb President Xi’s visit.”
Lu also acknowledged an affiliation with a former director of the 610 Office, a Gestapo-like agency created in 1999 specifically for persecution tasks. He had brought the official to his hometown in China for a tour, court documents show.
Another New York resident who appears to be a member of the American ChangLe Association, together with Lu, has been receiving tasks from Chinese officials to identify the Chinese regime’s targets since at least 2018, according to the filings.
The former in 2018 requested help from Lu to try to deport a Chinese dissident and green card holder from the United States back to China.
The dissident told the FBI that they had experienced threats of violence that same year and that their family had been harassed in China since they arrived in the United States.
The co-conspirator also asked Lu to help find a Chinese national who had lived in Manhattan, as well as the person’s close associates.
In doing so, the co-conspirator shared the victim’s name, address as of 2016, birthdate, and a photo of the person in a public park, stating they needed the victim’s information in relation to a lawsuit, the court document said.
The FBI raided the secret police station in October 2022 and seized the phones of the two men, upon which the agents noted that they had deleted conversations with the Chinese police official, officials said in the complaint.
U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York said the prosecution was part of their efforts to protect vulnerable people who “come to this country to escape the repressive activities of authoritarian regimes.”
Countering malign activities of foreign states that violate U.S. sovereignty by targeting local diaspora communities is a priority of his office, he said.
Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s national security division called Chen’s effort in operating the secret outpost “brazen.”
The Department of Justice will “pursue anyone who attempts to aid the PRC’s efforts to extend their repressive reach into the United States,” he said, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
Robert Wells, executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch, said Chen’s admission of guilt was “a stark reminder of the insidious efforts taken by the PRC government to threaten, harass, and intimidate those who speak against their communist party.”
“These blatant violations will not be tolerated on U.S. soil,” Wells said.
