Two U.S. citizens have been charged and arrested for their role in the Chinese-government-run police station that operated out of a Lower Manhattan office space, federal prosecutors said this afternoon. They also announced a series of other charges against Chinese Ministry of Public Security officers for their role in harassing dissidents on U.S. soil and interfering in American politics.
The two defendants in the police-station case are Lu Jianwang, who also goes by Harry Lu, and Chen Jinping. Federal prosecutors have charged both with acting as unregistered agents of the Chinese government and obstruction of justice.
U.S. attorney Breon Peace unveiled the case in a press conference with other DOJ and FBI officials.
“Two miles from our office, just across the Brooklyn Bridge, this nondescript office building in the heart of bustling Chinatown in Lower Manhattan, has a dark secret,” he said. “Until several months ago, an entire floor of this building hosted an undeclared police station of the Chinese national police.”
Peace said that, while the station was used for simple administrative matters, such as renewing drivers’ licenses, this one “had a more sinister use” and in at least one case was involved in efforts to locate a pro-democracy activist of Chinese descent. Lu and Chen allegedly destroyed evidence when they became aware of an FBI investigation into their activities.
The station’s existence first came to light last fall, when the human-rights nonprofit Safeguard Defenders released a report identifying it as an outpost of the Public Security Bureau of the city of Fuzhou. The police station was established in early 2022, allegedly under the auspices of the America ChangLe Association, a Chinese-government-linked nonprofit group. According to a criminal complaint unveiled today, Lu is a former president and general advisor of the group, while Chen is secretary-general of the America ChangLe Association.
Amid heightened public scrutiny, including from members of Congress who organized a protest in front of the facility, the State Department told National Review earlier this year that it had closed. Peace confirmed the closing of the station today.
The criminal complaint states that the facility was searched by the FBI on October 3 of last year, with agents seizing a banner with the police-station logo, electronic equipment, and the cellphones of America ChangLe members.
The complaint also alleges that Lu worked with the Chinese government to organize counter-protests against Falun Gong practitioners in Washington, D.C.
According to the complaint, Lu “has had a longstanding relationship of trust with the PRC government and, in particular, the MPS and the [United Front Work Department].” The department is a key CCP bureau that organizes pro-Beijing influence activities globally. The complaint also reveals that Lu is a member of a key Fujian province CCP organ that oversees activities by the United Front Work Department.
During Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s 2015 visit to the U.S., Lu and other local Chinese association leaders sent representatives to counterprotest anti-Xi demonstrations by Falun Gong groups, Lu told FBI agents. Lu received a plaque from the then-deputy director of the MPS for his work on the protests.
Lu, Chen, and a third unnamed conspirator have worked with the Chinese government to locate Chinese nationals in the U.S. wanted by the MPS. A victim of these efforts told the FBI that the America ChangLe Association had harassed this individual via unsolicited telephone calls and threats of violence against the victim’s family in the U.S.
Lu also collaborated with another co-conspirator who stalked a second victim, partly by photographing that person in a public park.
The complaint adds that an MPS officer tasked the Chinese police station with locating a person of interest at least once since February 2022.
In a statement to National Review, Representative Mike Gallagher, the chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, called the arrests “a small but important victory for American sovereignty and dissidents fleeing oppression who have made America their home” and an important step that ensures that “everyone in this country knows if the CCP targets them, their voices will be heard, and they will be protected.”
“The United States must remain a haven from persecution, not a hunting ground for dictators,” he added.
The Justice Department also unsealed two cases in which prosecutors have charged over 40 Ministry of Public Security officers and two officials from the Cyberspace Administration of China for their role in harassment plots targeting Chinese dissidents in the U.S.
One of the plots involved the elite MPS 912 Special Project Working Groups, which allegedly used thousands of fake social-media profiles on sites including Twitter to harass and threaten dissidents, and the fake profiles also boosted Chinese Communist Party propaganda. The MPS officers worked to disrupt dissidents’ meetings hosted on an unnamed video-conferencing platform.
Another filing amends 2020 charges against Julien Jin, the company’s liaison to Chinese law enforcement who had worked to disrupt dissidents’ video-conferencing meetings, to add MPS and CAC officials overseeing Jin’s efforts. That video-conferencing company is widely understood to be Zoom.
“These cases demonstrate that the Chinese Communist Party, once again, attempted to intimidate, harass, and suppress Chinese dissidents in the United States,” said David Sundberg, the director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, about the MPS plots.
Federal prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York are pursuing several other cases against people involved in Chinese-government harassment plots and have reached plea deals with two defendants in one of them.