By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York resident who prosecutors say operated a “secret police station” within the Chinatown district of Manhattan to assist Beijing’s concentrating on of dissidents, pleaded responsible on Wednesday to conspiring to behave as an unregistered overseas agent.
Chen Jinping, 61, entered the plea at a listening to in Brooklyn Federal Court docket earlier than U.S. District Choose Nina Morrison. He faces as much as 5 years in jail when he’s sentenced on Could 30.
In courtroom, Chen admitted to eradicating a web based article concerning the alleged police station on behalf of China’s authorities in September 2022. He stated he was not registered with the Justice Division as a overseas agent on the time, as U.S. legislation requires of individuals performing for different international locations.
Chen and a New York-based co-defendant, Lu Jianwang, had been initially arrested on April 17, 2023. Lu has pleaded not responsible to the identical cost, in addition to to obstruction of justice.
The arrests adopted a 2022 investigation printed by Spain-based advocacy group Safeguard Defenders that reported China had arrange abroad “service stations,” together with in New York, that illegally labored with Chinese language police to stress fugitives to return to China.
The Division of Justice has been ramping up probes into what it calls “transnational repression” by U.S. adversaries similar to China and Iran to intimidate political opponents residing in the US.
China’s embassy in Washington didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Chen’s plea.
The Chinese language authorities has stated there are facilities exterior China run by native volunteers, not Chinese language law enforcement officials, that purpose to assist Chinese language residents renew paperwork and supply different providers. Beijing has accused Washington of fabricating the costs to smear China’s picture.
Lu and Chen are U.S. residents who ran a nonprofit group that lists its mission as offering a social gathering place for folks from China’s Fujian province, prosecutors stated.
Earlier than it closed within the fall of 2022, the boys’s New York operation occupied a full ground in a nondescript Chinatown constructing close to the Manhattan Bridge (NASDAQ:).
Prosecutors stated the location was being utilized in half for mundane authorities providers similar to serving to some Chinese language residents renew their driver’s licenses – exercise they are saying ought to have been disclosed to U.S. authorities.
However prosecutors additionally stated that in 2022, Lu was requested by Beijing to find a person residing in California who was thought of a pro-democracy activist. In 2018, Lu had sought to steer a person thought of a fugitive by China to return dwelling, prosecutors stated.
