A New York man has admitted to serving as an unlawful Chinese agent by running a covert police station for Beijing in Manhattan. Chen Jinping, a 60-year-old US citizen, pleaded guilty on December 18 in front of US District Judge Nina Morrison, authorities said, marking the latest step in combating the Chinese regime’s transnational repression plan.

NTD TelevisionNTD Television search SIGN IN A Chinese agent pleads guilty to operating a secret police station in New York. By Eva Fu December 19, 2024 New York Share 0 0 share Chinese agent pleads guilty to operating a secret police station in New York. On April 18, 2023, a skyscraper suspected of being utilized as a secret police station in Chinatown to persecute dissidents living in the United States on behalf of the Chinese regime stands in lower Manhattan, New York. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images). A New York man has admitted to serving as an unlawful Chinese agent by running a covert police station for Beijing in Manhattan. Chen Jinping, a 60-year-old United States citizen, pled guilty on December 18

Chen was the association’s secretary general at the time of his arrest, and the other man, Lu Jianwang, was the former president. Lu, or “Harry Lu,” has pled not guilty to the accusations and is awaiting trial.

The station was established in mid-February 2022 and has since assisted an official from China’s Ministry of Public Security, the country’s police force, in locating a person of interest, a California pro-democracy advocate who had served as an advisor to a 2022 congressional candidate from New York State, according to the federal complaint. According to the court document, Lu forwarded a message to Chen weeks before the station opened, stating that “in order to establish a smooth connection to the remote checkup identification renewal system, every overseas service station must grant access privileges to the 110 system.” The number 110 is associated with police in China. The notification prompted recipients to send the service station’s IP address to a specified email address.

Federal prosecutors said their investigation revealed Lu had a long-standing trust relationship with Chinese authorities. During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2015 visit to Washington, Lu and other local Chinese association leaders despatched members of their organizations to counter-protest Falun Gong practitioners’ public demonstrations. The faith organization, which has been persecuted in China since 1999, attempted to protest the regime’s continuous oppression. The court document includes a photo of Lu holding a plaque with a Chinese police official commemorating his efforts “to ensure that members of the Falun Gong religion did not disrupt President Xi’s visit.”

Lu also admitted to being affiliated with a former director of the 610 Office, a Gestapo-like entity established in 1999 expressly for persecuting tasks. According to court documents, he had invited the official on a tour of his homeland in China. According to the papers, another New York citizen who appears to be a member of the American ChangLe Association, along with Lu, has been assigned assignments by Chinese authorities to identify targets for the Chinese regime since at least 2018. In 2018, the former asked Lu for help in deporting a Chinese dissident and green card holder from the United States back to China. The dissident informed the FBI that they had received threats of violence that same year, and that their family had

The co-conspirator also instructed Lu to locate a Chinese national who had lived in Manhattan, as well as the individual’s close connections. The co-conspirator gave the victim’s name, address as of 2016, birthdate, and a photo of the individual in a public park, claiming they required the information for a lawsuit, according to the court complaint. In October 2022, the FBI stormed the secret police station and seized the two men’s phones, discovering that they had deleted talks with the Chinese police officer, according to the complaint. U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York stated that the case was part of their efforts to safeguard vulnerable individuals who “come

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.