A New York City police officer was arrested and charged Monday by federal prosecutors with spying for China, including providing Chinese officials with access to NYPD officials and giving intelligence on Tibetans living in the U.S.
Baimadajie Angwang, 33, a community affairs officer in Queens, acted โat the direction and controlโ of Chinese government officials at the New York Chinese Consulate and โused his official position in the NYPDโ to provide Chinese officials access to senior NYPD officials through invitations to NYPD events, according to the criminal complaint.
An ethnic Tibetan himself, Anwang, who was born in China and became a naturalized U.S. citizen, also used his position on the police force to report on ethnic Tibetans in New York City and assess potential intelligence sources within that community.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged Angwang with acting as a foreign agent without notifying American authorities, wire fraud, making false statements, and obstructing an official proceeding. He is also accused of offering a consulate official information about the NYPDโs internal operations.
Angwang joined the NYPD in 2016 and once received the โCop of the Monthโ honor. He is currently suspended from the department.
He served as a Marine in Afghanistan in 2013. Since 2014, he has been a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve at Fort Dix, where he held a national security clearance that gave him access to classified information, prosecutors said.
Since 2018, Angwang was in regular contact with at least two Chinese officials at the New York consulate. He referred to one of the officials more than once as โBoss.โ
โAccording to the allegations, the Chinese government recruited and directed a U.S. citizen and member of our nationโs largest law enforcement department to further its intelligence gathering and repression of Chinese abroad,โ Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said in a statement.







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