The FBI has arrested two men accused of running a covert station for China’s police force in New York, and using it as a base to track Chinese dissidents living in the US.
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47 comment(s).Last comment by IDQWE001 2023-04-25 09:55
Operation Fox Hunt and China's international efforts to force 'fugitives' back
A human rights organisation says China is abducting and intimidating political dissidents and their families living overseas in countries including Australia under the guise of anti-corruption campaigns.
A new report by Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders said at least eight Australian residents appear to have been involuntarily returned by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to face prosecution for alleged "economic crimes" in China.
Beijing's methods include threatening targets' families back in China, sending agents to intimidate the targets in their host country and, in some rare cases, direct kidnappings, the report said.
"With involuntary returns, the CCP's message is that nowhere is safe; fleeing overseas will not save you, there is no escape," it said.
Beijing is accused of forcing thousands of people to return to China, often to face certain imprisonment The Australian Federal Police maintains close cooperation with Chinese counterparts despite human rights concerns Critics say China misuses Interpol's red notice system to target citizens abroad
U.S. arrests 2 for allegedly operating secret Chinese police outpost in New York
Washington — The FBI arrested two defendants on charges that they set up and operated an illegal Chinese police station in the middle of New York City in order to influence and intimidate dissidents critical of the Chinese government in the U.S., the Justice Department announced Monday.
"Harry" Lu Jianwang, 61, of the Bronx, and Chen Jinping, 59, of Manhattan are charged with conspiring to act as agents of the Chinese government and obstruction of justice. In a 30-page affidavit accompanying a criminal complaint, an FBI agent alleged that the defendants established a secret police station under the direction of China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) in a Manhattan office building.
The Justice Department said the two men helped open the outpost in 2022, and deleted their communications with an MPS official once they became aware of the FBI's investigation. Both are due to appear in federal court in Brooklyn later on Monday.
"It is simply outrageous that China's Ministry of Public Security thinks it can get away with establishing a secret, illegal police station on U.S. soil to aid its efforts to export repression and subvert our rule of law," said Kurt Ronnow, the acting assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division. "This case serves as a powerful reminder that the People's Republic of China will stop at nothing to bend people to their will and silence messages they don't want anyone to hear."
China disputed the U.S. assertions about the police stations on Tuesday, according to the Reuters news agency, which quotes Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin as saying they don't exist and that China has a policy of non-interference in other nations' internal affairs.
Agence France-Presse reports that Wenbin said "political manipulation" was behind the arrests.
"China firmly opposes the US side's slandering, smearing, engaging in political manipulation, and maliciously concocting the so-called transnational repression narrative," AFP quotes him as saying.
In a separate complaint, nearly three dozen MPS officers were charged with using fake social media accounts to intimidate Chinese dissents in the U.S. and disseminate "official PRC government propaganda and narratives to counter the pro-democracy speech of the Chinese dissidents," the Justice Department said, referring to the People's Republic of China.
The 34 defendants, all believed to reside in China, allegedly worked as part of an elite task force known as the "912 Special Project Working Group" to locate and harass Chinese dissidents around the world in an effort to silence criticism of the Chinese government. Others are accused of disrupting online meetings where topics critical of the Chinese government were discussed, according to charging documents unsealed Monday.
The group allegedly operated a troll farm of thousands of fake social media profiles on sites like Twitter to disseminate Chinese government propaganda and recruit agents inside the U.S. to do the same. In one instance, members of the 912 Group allegedly targeted an anti-communism virtual conference convened by a Chinese dissident with loud music, threats and vulgarities.
Ten more individuals, including six MPS officers, are accused of trying to censor the political and religious speech of people in the U.S. who were critical of China's government.
"As alleged, the PRC government deploys its national police and the 912 Special Project Working Group not as an instrument to uphold the law and protect public safety, but rather as a troll farm that attacks persons in our country for exercising free speech in a manner that the PRC government finds disagreeable, and also spreads propaganda whose sole purpose is to sow divisions within the United States," Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a release.
Monday's charges, the first targeting secret Chinese police outposts anywhere in the world, are the latest in the Justice Department's efforts to combat transnational repression of foreign dissidents living in the U.S. Last year, federal prosecutors charged more than a dozen defendants, most of them Chinese officials, with allegedly participating in schemes to repatriate critics of the Chinese government, obtain secret information about a U.S. investigation into a Chinese telecom firm and recruit spies to act as agents of the Chinese regime in the U.S.
And in January, the Justice Department accused three men of plotting to assassinate an Iranian journalist living in the U.S. for her outspoken criticism of Iran's regime. The men, from the U.S., Iran and the Czech Republic, were charged with murder-for-hire in an indictment unsealed in federal court in New York.
What are China’s alleged ‘secret overseas police’ stations? ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 18, 2023
BEIJING — Police in New York have arrested two men for allegedly setting up a secret police station for a Chinese provincial police agency to collect information on opponents of the ruling Communist Party. In a February 2002 news release, the government of Fujian province said it had established a first batch of 30 "Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Stations" on five continents. The province has traditionally sent waves of migrants to Southeast Asia, North America, Australia and Europe.
Scores of service offices — Safeguard Defenders estimates more than 100 — have been reported around the world, from Canada to New Zealand. Some are based in embassies, while others have operated out of commercial centers frequented by members of the Chinese diaspora.
In Italy, Chinese police made an agreement with the government in 2016 to conduct joint patrols with local police to assist Chinese-speaking tourists. Italy ended the program last year following the Safeguard Defenders report.
Chinese businessman with Tory links hosts a 'secret police station' at his London business address: Report
A Times report alleges that a Chinese businessman who is linked to a “secret police station” in London organised fundraising dinners for the Tory party and has even been photographed with party leaders. The Chinese man in question is Ruiyou Lin and he runs a takeaway food platform in Croydon, whose office address hosts an alleged overseas Chinese police station. The Times reported that Lin has attended Chinese Communist Party (CCP) political conferences in China. He has also held positions in several organisations in Britain that have links to the party department responsible for overseeing the United Front strategy of using Chinese nationals living abroad to push its interests.The address is on a list of “overseas service stations for police and overseas Chinese affairs” that the public security bureau from the Chinese city of Fuzhou in has set up. These stations claim to help Chinese nationals living overseas with administrative tasks.
does not matter what China do or did not do, in this environment of yellow peril, red peril, it plays well politically. What are they going to do? ban Chinese from gathering?
in this environment, there will be a net brain drain of top scientists back to China and can only be good for China.
Hidden in plain site: The hunt for China's 'secret police offices'
They are reportedly "secret police offices" that are run by Chinese nationals in countries around the world, The Associated Press reports, often in locations "where Chinese communities include critics of the Communist Party who have family or business contacts in China." While these sites are typically set up under the guise of providing diplomatic services, there have been accusations that many operatives within these outposts "harass or threaten both citizens and non-citizens" that criticize China, AP adds.
However, if these allegations are to be believed, then the harassment may also go beyond mere threats. A report from human rights group Safeguard Defenders claims that the stations often use intimidating tactics to try and repatriate ex-Chinese nationals who they accuse of criticizing the country, using "illicit methods to harass, threaten, intimidate, and force targets to return to China for persecution."
Dictatorial communist regime trying to enforce its doctrine all over the world.
Agreed with you. CCP evil agent around the corner between you and me. Bukit Aman should investigate especially those who support surrender Petronas Gas Exploration Tanah Malaysia to the evil.
greed with you. CCP evil agent around the corner between you and me. Bukit Aman ..
The evil CCP spend a lot of money to employ evil supporters to publicity communism. There are many support to surrender Tanah Malaysia to the evil. Bukit Aman should investigate those evil agents.
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Posted by IDQWE001 > 2023-04-18 09:55 | Report Abuse
The FBI has arrested two men accused of running a covert station for China’s police force in New York, and using it as a base to track Chinese dissidents living in the US.