FBI breaks up PRC's New York City "police station" allegedly spying, harassing US residents and citizens

Two Chinese Americans were arrested Monday by the FBI for their connection to secret "police stations" under the direction of officials of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). The mission of the "police station" was to harass and intimidate Chinese living in the US, including US citizens, say federal authorities. 

Lu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, both New York City residents, were arrested Monday (April 17) and face charges of conspiring to act as agents for China and obstruction of justice.

“The PRC, through its repressive security apparatus, established a secret physical presence in New York City to monitor and intimidate dissidents and those critical of its government,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “The PRC’s actions go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct. We will resolutely defend the freedoms of all those living in our country from the threat of authoritarian repression.”

There were two criminal complaints against the PRC filed by the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York that were unsealed Monday in federal court in Brooklyn:

One resulted in the arrests of Lu and Chen for their involvement in the alleged "police stations." The second complaint charges 44 defendants with various crimes related to efforts by the national police of the PRC – the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) – to harass Chinese nationals residing in the New York metropolitan area and elsewhere in the United States. 

The alleged "police station" was located in lower Manhatten and resulted in the arrests of Lu and Chen at this New York City homes.

As alleged in the complaint, Lu and Chen are charged with conspiring to act as agents of the PRC government as well as obstructing justice by destroying evidence of their communications with an MPS official. The defendants worked together to establish the first overseas police station in the United States on behalf of the Fuzhou branch of the MPS.

In response, the PRC's foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said during a media briefing today, Tuesday, April 18: "China firmly opposes the U.S.'s slander and smears, its political manipulation, the false narrative of 'transnational repression,' and blatant prosecution of Chinese law enforcement and cyber administration officials."

The alleged "police station,"  closed in the fall of 2022 after those operating it became aware of the FBI’s investigation. It occupied an entire floor in an office building in Manhattan’s Chinatown. 

PRC AGENTS?

While acting under the direction and control of an MPS Official, Lu and Chen helped open and operate the clandestine police station," the DOJ alleges. None of the suspects informed the US government that they were helping the PRC government surreptitiously open and operate an illegal MPS police station on US soil. By US law, foreign agents are required to register with the federal government.

“This prosecution reveals the Chinese government’s flagrant violation of our nation’s sovereignty by establishing a secret police station in the middle of New York City,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York. “As alleged, the defendants and their co-conspirators were tasked with doing the PRC’s bidding, including helping locate a Chinese dissident living in the United States, and obstructed our investigation by deleting their communications. Such a police station has no place here in New York City – or any American community.”

Before helping to open the police station in early 2022, Lu had a longstanding relationship of trust with PRC law enforcement, including the MPS. Since 2015, and through the operation of the secret police station, Lu was tasked with carrying out various activities, including to assist the PRC government’s repressive activities on U.S. soil:

• In 2015, during PRC President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States, Lu participated in counterprotests in Washington, D.C,. against members of a religion that is forbidden under PRC law. A deputy director of the MPS awarded Lu a plaque for the work he performed on behalf of the PRC government.
• In 2018, Lu was enlisted in efforts to cause a purported PRC fugitive to return to the PRC. The victim reported being repeatedly harassed to return to the PRC, including through threats of violence made to the victim and the victim’s family in the United States and in the PRC.
• In 2022, the MPS Official sought Lu’s assistance in locating an individual living in California who is a pro-democracy activist. In turn, Lu enlisted the help of another coconspirator. Later, when confronted by the FBI about these conversations, Lu denied that they occurred.

In October 2022, the FBI conducted a search of the illegal police station during which  agents interviewed both Lu and Chen and seized their phones. In reviewing the contents of these phones, FBI agents observed that communications between Lu and Chen, on the one hand, and the MPS Official, on the other, appeared to have been deleted. In subsequent consensual interviews, Lu and Chen admitted to the FBI that they had deleted their communications with the MPS Official after learning about the ongoing FBI investigation, thus preventing the FBI from learning the full extent of the MPS’s directions for the overseas police station.

GOOGLE STREETVIEW

The alleged PRC "police station" took up an entire floor of the glass-faced building in Manhatten's Chinatown.

If convicted of conspiring to act as agents of the PRC, the defendants face a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The obstruction of justice charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

In addition to the two arrests, the DOJ is charging 44 defendants with various crimes related to efforts by the national police of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) – to harass Chinese nationals residing in the New York metropolitan area and elsewhere in the United States.

The defendants, including 40 MPS officers and two officials in the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), allegedly perpetrated transnational repression schemes targeting US residents whose political views and actions are disfavored by the PRC government, such as advocating for democracy in the PRC.

In the two schemes, the defendants created and used fake social media accounts to harass and intimidate PRC dissidents residing abroad and sought to suppress the dissidents’ free speech on the platform of a U.S. telecommunications company, which the DOJ documents refer to as "Company-1."

According to ABC News sources, "Company-1" was Zoom and from China the insider allegedly was able to disrupt meetings on Zoom.

The defendants charged in these schemes are believed to reside in the PRC or elsewhere in Asia and remain at large.

CYBER HARASSMENT

“These cases demonstrate the lengths the PRC government will go to silence and harass U.S. persons who exercise their fundamental rights to speak out against PRC oppression, including by unlawfully exploiting a U.S.-based technology company,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “These actions violate our laws and are an affront to our democratic values and basic human rights.”

“China’s Ministry of Public Security used operatives to target people of Chinese descent who had the courage to speak out against the Chinese Communist Party – in one case by covertly spreading propaganda to undermine confidence in our democratic processes and, in another, by suppressing U.S. video conferencing users’ free speech,” said Acting Assistant Director Kurt Ronnow of the FBI Counterintelligence Division. 

The complaint alleges how members of the 912 Special Project Working Group created thousands of fake online personas on social media sites, including Twitter, to target Chinese dissidents through online harassment and threats. These online personas also disseminated official PRC government propaganda and narratives to counter the pro-democracy speech of the Chinese dissidents.

As alleged, for example, Group members created and maintained the fake social media accounts through temporary email addresses, posted official PRC government content, and interacted with other online users to avoid the appearance that the Group accounts were “flooding” a given social media platform. The Group tracks the performances of members in fulfilling their online responsibilities and rewards Group members who successfully operate multiple online personas without detection by the social media companies who host the platforms or by other users of the platforms.

The investigation also uncovered official MPS instructions to Group members to compose articles and videos based on certain themes targeting, for example, the activities of Chinese dissidents located abroad or the policies of the US government.

As alleged, the defendants also attempted to recruit US permanent residents or citizens to act as unwitting agents of the PRC government by disseminating propaganda or narratives of the PRC government. On several occasions, the defendants used online personas to contact individuals assessed to be sympathetic and supportive of the PRC government’s narratives and asked these individuals to disseminate Group content.

In addition, Group members flooded "Company-1" with complaints to have Chinese dissidents and their meetings removed from the social media platform.

For example, Group members disrupted a dissident’s efforts to commemorate the Tiananmen Square Massacre through a videoconference by posting threats against the participants through the platform’s chat function. 

In another Company-1 videoconference on the topic of countering communism organized by a PRC dissident residing in New York, Group members flooded the videoconference and drowned out the meeting with loud music and vulgar screams and threats directed at the pro-democracy participants.

GLOBAL ESPIONAGE

The arrest of Lu and Chen is the first arrests in the world in connection with the PRC "police stations."

The DOJ complaints imply the PRC may have scores of these "police stations" operating around the world. The British Broadcasting Corp. reports that PRC embassies in the US and Canada have said the locations are "overseas service stations'' opened during the pandemic supposedly to assist nationals abroad with driver's licence renewal and similar matters.

But human rights groups have accused the PRC of using the outposts to threaten and monitor people of Chinese descent living outside of China.

Safeguard Defenders, a watchdog that tracks disappearances of critics of the Chinese Communist Party, issued a report in September detailing claims that Chinese police are operating a program of foreign stations to harass regime critics abroad.

Beijing claims the so-called overseas service stations were set up to provide essential services to citizens. But Safeguard Defenders said they in fact are used to coerce emigrants to return home to face criminal charges in China, in an effort to silence dissent of the regime abroad.

The Madrid-based Safeguard Defenders' report claims that China was running "illegal, transnational policing operations" in 30 countries, including Europe and Australia.

The Dutch and Irish governments have already ordered China to shut down the operations, while the stations are also being investigated by the governments of the Czech Republic, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

In the US, the FBI charges unveiled Monday may be the tip of an iceberg that reveals the extent the PRC and other foreign governments might have on US citizens. 

By the spread of disinformation, threats, harassment and the abusive use of social media platforms, the foreign agents might be able to influence opinions of Asian America towards candidates, policies or beliefs that would benefit foreign governments or homegrown political entities sympathetic to those countries.

The PRC is not the alone in posing a cyber threat to the US and its people. Many experts described Russia as the far more dangerous short-term threat but warned cyber competition from China is more threatening in the long run, cites the Washington Post.

“When dangerous is defined as having the greatest potential to cause damage to people and organizations in the U.S., the answer is Russia,” said Katie Nickels, director of intelligence for the cybersecurity firm Red Canary, told the Washington Post. “When dangerous is defined as having the greatest potential to threaten the strategic role of the U.S. as an enduring great power, the answer is China.”

“These cases demonstrate that the Chinese Communist Party, once again, attempted to intimidate, harass, and suppress Chinese dissidents in the United States,” said Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office. “In the United States, the freedom of speech is a cornerstone of our democracy, and the FBI will work tirelessly to defend everyone's right to speak freely without fear of retribution from the CCP. These complex investigations revealed an MPS-wide effort to repress individuals by using the U.S. communications platform and fake social media accounts to censor political and religious speech.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.