The Department of Justice shared on Monday that two New York men have been arrested and charged after they were allegedly found to be conspiring with the People’s Republic of China by running a Chinese police outpost in New York City, to monitor dissidents who are critical of China’s government.
The arrests of “Harry” Lu Jianwang, 61, of the Bronx, and Chen Jinping, 59, of Manhattan, were shared in a criminal complaint unsealed on Monday. Both men were taken into custody without a struggle on Monday morning.
According to the DOJ, the two defendants have been operating an illegal overseas police station in lower Manhattan, New York, since early 2022. The police station was a provincial branch of the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China.
“The defendants worked together to establish the first overseas police station in the United States on behalf of the Fuzhou branch of the MPS,” the DOJ said in a statement. “The police station – which closed in the fall of 2022 after those operating it became aware of the FBI’s investigation – occupied a floor in an office building in Manhattan’s Chinatown.”
U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York shared in the DOJ’s release that the actions of Lu, Chen, and the People’s Republic of China are a clear violation of the United States’ sovereignty.
“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,” Peace said. “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.”
The two men have also been charged with obstructing justice, as the DOJ alleges that when they discovered the FBI was investigating their activities, they started covering their tracks by destroying evidence that they were communicating with an MPS official.
The DOJ alleged in its release that Lu and Chen were helping operate the police station so that China could monitor its former citizens who were critical of its government. Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen echoed this sentiment in the release.
“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,” Olsen, a member of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said. “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.”
Lu and Chen are expected to make their first appearance in court in Brooklyn Monday afternoon. If they are convicted of conspiring to act as agents of the People’s Republic of China, the two men could face a maximum of five years in prison. The maximum sentence for an obstructing justice charge is 20 years in prison.
The DOJ also shared it has charged 40 officers of China’s National Police regarding transnational repression schemes targeting U.S. residents. This included the officers using “fake social media accounts to harass and intimidate PRC dissidents.”
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