Significant national security matter': 2 New Yorkers allegedly operated a hidden Chinese spy police

Описание: #policestation #nationalsecurity #chinesespy

Significant national security matter': 2 New Yorkers allegedly operated a hidden Chinese spy police station.

The arrests of two New Yorkers who allegedly managed a secret Chinese government police station in Manhattan's Chinatown were made public on Monday by the FBI and US prosecutors.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping have both been accused of conspiring to operate as agents of the Chinese government.

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of China, according to Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for that office, "has repeatedly and flagrantly violated our nation's sovereignty, including by opening and operating a police station in the middle of New York City."

This unassuming office complex in Lower Manhattan's bustling Chinatown is barely two miles from our office and is located just across the Brooklyn Bridge. It has a sinister secret. Peace claimed that the Chinese National Police had an unofficial police station on an entire floor of this building up until a few months ago. "Now, picture the NYPD establishing a clandestine police station in Beijing. It would not be conceivable.

What we are aware of taking place inside the Lower Manhattan covert police station is as follows. At the very least, the station was offering some official services, Peace continued, such as assisting Chinese citizens with renewing their Chinese driver's licenses.

But even then, the statute stipulates that anyone acting in New York City on behalf of a foreign government, such as the defendants, must notify the attorney general in advance. That didn't take place.

The secret police station's apparent usage for a more malevolent purpose on at least one occasion, Peace continued, is more alarming. "One of the defendants, a U.S. citizen who worked at the secret police station, received instructions from a CNP official to assist in locating a pro-democracy activist of Chinese heritage residing in California. In other words, it appears that the station was being used by the Chinese national police to locate a citizen of the United States on American land.

When they became aware of the FBI's investigation, the two defendants whose arrests we're announcing today destroyed evidence of their conversations with the Chinese national police, Peace said. "These two defendants knew they had something to hide, and they interfered with the administration of justice in an effort to keep the FBI from learning the full scope of what they were up to," the prosecutor wrote.

The FBI's New York field office and Peace's office, according to Peace, are the "first law enforcement partners in the world to make arrests in connection with the Chinese government's overseas police stations."

According to him, both suspects in the case were detained early on Monday at their residences in New York City. American citizens are both. They made their initial court appearance on the allegations on Monday.

According to Michael Driscoll, the deputy director in charge of the FBI's New York field office, "Not only was the police station set up on the order of MSS officials, but members of the Chinese consulate in New York even paid a visit to it after it opened."

According to Peace, Lu Jianwang "had a longstanding relationship of trust with [Chinese] law enforcement, including the MSS, before helping to open the police station in early 2022."

In 2018, Lu was involved in efforts to persuade a supposedly fugitive Chinese person to return to China, Peace said. "The person who was the target of such attempt claimed that he was continually pressed to go back to China. MPS officials harassed a victim's family in China, and that victim got threats of harm against his family in the United States.

The disclosure was previously referred to by the Justice Department as a "significant national security matter."

A magistrate judge will hear the defendants' case in court on Monday afternoon.

The defendants will be held accountable as a result of our investigation and today's arrest with the FBI, Peace said. And we want the MSS to know that we won't stand for similar assaults on our national sovereignty.

In addition, Peace on Monday announced charges against 34 MSS police officers who were members of a task team known as the "912 Special Project Working Group."

They are charged with conspiring to spread interstate threats and interstate harassment.

A typical police force is not what this task force is. It doesn't defend individuals or stop crimes. He claimed that it targets Chinese democracy campaigners and dissidents living abroad, even right here in New York City, by committing crimes.