US arrests two for setting up Chinese 'secret police station' in New York

Lu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, face charges of conspiring to act as agents of China's government without informing US authorities and obstruction of justice. They were released on bond following an initial appearance in Brooklyn federal court.

The Department of Justice has been ramping up probes into what it calls "transnational repression" by US adversaries such as China and Iran to intimidate political opponents living in the United States.

"We cannot and will not tolerate the Chinese government's persecution of pro-democracy activists who have sought refuge in this country," Breon Peace, the top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, told reporters.

Prosecutors on Monday unveiled charges against 34 Chinese officials for allegedly operating a "troll farm" and harassing dissidents online, including by disrupting their meetings on US technology platforms.

They also added eight Chinese government officials as defendants in a case announced in 2020 charging a former China-based executive of Zoom Video Communications Inc ZM.O with disrupting video meetings commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

The officials charged are all at large.

China's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lu and Chen are both US citizens who lead a nonprofit organization that lists its mission as providing a social gathering place for people from China's Fujian province, prosecutors said

Lu in 2018 sought to persuade an individual considered a fugitive by China to return home, prosecutors said. In 2022, he helped open the so-called police station and was asked by China's government to locate an individual living in California who was considered a pro-democracy activist, they added.

Prosecutors said Lu and Chen admitted to the FBI that they deleted their communications with a Chinese government official. The police station closed in the fall of 2022, according to prosecutors.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told a US Senate committee in November that he was "very concerned" about the presence of such stations in US cities.

Prosecutors previously charged more than a dozen Chinese nationals and others with waging surveillance and harassment campaigns against dissidents living in the United States, including by trying to forcibly repatriate people whom China considered fugitives.

Uygur American lawyer Nury Turkel, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute think tank, which was sanctioned by China on April 7, welcomed the arrests.

"It is a long overdue law enforcement action to push back against China's transnational repression that has been taking place in the homeland here in the United States as well as in Europe," Turkel said, calling the arrests "a positive step to the right direction."

A 2022 investigation published by Spain-based advocacy group Safeguard Defenders reported that China had set up overseas "service stations," including in New York, that illegally worked with Chinese police to pressure fugitives to return to China.

The Chinese government has said there are centres outside China run by local volunteers, not Chinese police officers, that aim to help Chinese citizens renew documents and offer other services.

Turkel said he would expect denials from Beijing, but hoped activists would be encouraged by the arrests.

"This kind of law enforcement actions helps to build some confidence among those activists risking their well-being and family safety, personal safety to speak out against the repression underway in China," he said.

Hudson Institute was sanctioned by China over the hosting of Taiwan's de facto ambassador to the United States, and Turkel says he has personally faced retaliation from the Chinese Communist Party for his human rights work.

The Department of Justice has been ramping up probes into what it calls "transnational repression" by US adversaries such as China and Iran to intimidate political opponents living in the United States.

Reuters