The Department of Justice has unsealed criminal complaints against five Chinese nationals who are being charged with stalking and harassing American citizens, and in some cases plotting far worse.
Qiming Lin, 59, is being charged with interstate harassment and conspiracy, with the federal government alleging that he is an agent of China's Ministry of State Security (MSS). The MSS is China's external intelligence gathering agency which recruits spies abroad on behalf of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
"The Ministry of State Security is more than an intelligence collection agency. It executes the Chinese government’s efforts to limit free speech, attack dissidents, and preserve the power of the Communist Party," said Assistant Director Alan E. Kohler Jr. of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in a DOJ press release.
"When it exports those actions overseas, it violates the fundamental sovereignty of the United States and becomes a national security threat. These indictments should serve as a stark warning to the MSS and all foreign intelligence agencies that their efforts at repression will not be tolerated within our borders," Kohler explained.
The Justice Department alleges that Lin hired a private investigator to stalk and harass a Brooklyn resident who was running for Congress. The victim was a student organizer at the Tiananmen Square uprising who fled to the United States, became a U.S. citizen, and served in the Army.
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According to the unsealed complaint, Lin told the private investigator, "right now we don’t want him to be elected. Whatever price is fine. As long as you can do it." He also told the investigator that, "we will have a lot more-more of this [work] in the future…Including right now [a] New York State legislator."
Lin wanted the investigator to dig up compromising information on the congressional candidate, but after failing to do that, to manufacture some.
"Go find a girl… Or see how he goes for prostitution, take some photos, something of that nature," Lin instructed him. Lin then went to far to ask the investigator to have the victim physically attacked so that he could not run for office.
If convicted, Lin is facing up to ten years in prison.
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Reach Jack Murphy: jack@connectingvets.com or @JackMurphyRGR.
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