The FBI has arrested two persons in New York for running a covert Chinese police station in Manhattan’s Chinatown on behalf of China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS).
The station, which was allegedly established in February 2022, was used to track Chinese dissidents living in the United States as part of China’s campaign of transnational repression against pro-democracy activists and political opponents worldwide.
The U.S. Department of Justice also announced charges against 40 MPS officers and four others for operating an internet troll operation against dissidents in the U.S., including creating fake social media accounts to harass dissidents and recruiting an employee at a U.S. telecoms company to remove a pro-democracy activist from the platform. The alleged secret Chinese police station in New York was raided in October, and two individuals suspected of running it were arrested by the FBI.
The charges against the two individuals include obstruction of justice for allegedly deleting evidence from their phones of their contacts with an MPS official prior to the FBI search of the Chinatown police station. The Department of Justice stated that the two men admitted to deleting the material from their phones.
Kurt Ronnow, the acting assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, condemned the establishment of a secret, illegal police station on U.S. soil by China’s Ministry of Public Security, stating that it is outrageous and serves as a powerful reminder of China’s efforts to export repression and subvert the rule of law in other countries.
Last year, a Spanish civil rights group claimed that there are dozens of covert Chinese police stations operating in cities around the world, conducting surveillance and harassment.
These alleged stations were primarily located in Europe, with operations under police investigation in Spain, Italy, France, the Netherlands, and the UK. Three others were reportedly in Canada, contributing to growing political tensions between Ottawa and Beijing.