In the past I have posted two articles about the Chinese police quietly operating in New York City to monitor the activities of Chinese citizens in America (here and here). At least one of those undercover police stations in New York City has been shut down.
On Wednesday, The Epoch Times reported:
A jury has found the Chinese American who ran Beijing’s undercover police station in New York City guilty of being a foreign agent for China.
He was also found guilty of obstructing justice by deleting WeChat messages documenting his direct communications with his contact in the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS).
Lu Jianwang, 64, community leader and former president of the America ChangLe Association, was convicted on May 13 in Brooklyn Federal Court.
The jury found him not guilty of conspiring with others as a Chinese agent.
Lu ran the Overseas Chinese Police Service Center out of the offices of the hometown association on East Broadway in New York City’s Chinatown.
Lu is now being held accountable, and the police station has seen its “sinister purpose disrupted,” Joseph Nocella, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
The article notes:
The New York City branch run by Lu was just one of 30 stations launched on Jan. 10, 2022, by the Fuzhou Ministry of Public Security.
Prosecutors said the station was part of a larger campaign of transnational repression to monitor and intimidate Chinese people living abroad.
“I think if you’re a member of a community that originated in another country, you have to be very, very, very careful how you deal with people from your home country,” said Lu’s attorney, John Carman. “That should make everybody very nervous about reaching out and doing good things when there’s somebody who’s a government official from another country.”
Carman also said Lu would be appealing the verdict.
The charge of not registering as a foreign agent for the Chinese regime carries a maximum prison sentence of five years. The maximum sentence for the obstruction of justice charge is 20 years in prison. A date for sentencing has not yet been set.
Communism does not allow freedom–even when you leave the communist country.