A man who was one of the leaders of an international non-profit in Canada and other countries has pleaded guilty to acting as an agent on behalf of the People’s Republic of China without informing US authorities.
Chen Jinping, 60, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday. Jinping and an associate were accused of operating a secret Chinese police station in Manhattan, New York to crackdown on dissent abroad
According to U.S. Department of Justice assistant attorney general Matthew Olsen, the accused admitted to “audaciously establishing an undeclared police station” in Manhattan while attempting to conceal his efforts after being contacted by the FBI.
“This illegal police station was not opened in the interest of public safety, but to further the nefarious and repressive aims of the PRC in direct violation of American sovereignty,” said Olsen in a statement.
The covert police station was opened and operated with the help of Chen’s co-defendant, Lu Jianwang in early 2022.
The two were believed to be leaders of an international network posing as a Chinese cultural organization which had a presence in Canada and other countries. According to Parliamentary Committee Notes on Foreign Police Stations in Canada, “they were leaders of a nonprofit association for Fujanese people who, beginning in or around January 2022, conspired to act as agents of the PRC without prior notification to the Attorney General of the United States, as required by law.”
The U.S. affidavit published online also “indicates that photographs on Lu Jianwang’s device depict association presidents from various countries, including Canada.”
The police station occupied the entire floor of the building it was located in and while it provided basic services such as helping Chinese citizens renew their Chinese driver’s licenses, it also was used as an outpost to identify pro-democracy activists residing in the U.S.
“What we know about the Chinese transnational repression police stations in North America—and most of the known locations globally—is that they are operated by Fujian CCP police officials in collaboration with so-called ‘community leaders’ in cities with significant diaspora populations,” investigative journalist and author Sam Cooper told True North,
“Beijing uses these illegal and clandestine outposts on foreign soil to spy on citizens and gather financial intelligence. My research indicates that these networks are also involved in election interference funding, organized crime, and sophisticated attacks on democracy.”
While the clandestine operation was dismantled in the fall of 2022, both Chen and Lu managed to delete all pertinent information involving communications with the Chinese government from their phones before the FBI could seize them
China has been known to operate secretive police outposts throughout North America, including Canada, as well as Europe and many other places where the Chinese diaspora resides.
Human rights organization Safeguard Defenders released a report in early 2023 claiming that the Chinese government had set up more than 100 police stations in over 50 countries as part of a global campaign to “persuade” people to return to China to face charges.
Former public safety minister Marco Mendicino conceded that there could be more Chinese police stations operating in Canada last year, only a month after claiming that they had all been shut down by the RCMP.
“I am confident that the RCMP have taken concrete action to disrupt any foreign interference in relationship to those so-called police stations, and that if new police stations are popping up and so on, that they will continue to take decisive action going forward,” said Mendicino at the time. “Our expectation is that if those activities manifest, if there is foreign interference, that yes, the RCMP will take decisive action as they have in the past.”
Following Mendicino’s comments, the RCMP launched an investigation into Quebec charity Service à la Famille Chinoise du Grand Montréal after it was discovered that it was hosting an extrajudicial police station acting on behalf of Beijing.
The charity had also received nearly $200,000 in funding from the Trudeau government since 2020.
“In the New York prosecutions, open-source records reveal that Fujian community leaders from Toronto attended the same meetings in China with Chinese police officials operating these illegal stations as one of the co-accused in New York, who has yet to be convicted,” noted Cooper.
“In my expert opinion, the threat posed by these ‘community leaders’ in Canada is even greater than in the United States. This is due to Canada’s larger diaspora populations, which attract more interference assets from Beijing, combined with weaker laws and greater systemic vulnerabilities.”
