A New York City man has admitted to acting as an illegal Chinese agent by operating a secret police station for Beijing in Manhattan.

Chen Jinping, a 60-year-old U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty on Dec. 18 in front of U.S. District Judge Nina Morrison, a development that prosecutors lauded as the latest progress in countering the Chinese regime’s transnational repression scheme.

Chen was one of two individuals the FBI arrested in April 2023 over the illegal police station, one of more than 100 identified overseas Chinese police outposts Beijing had operated globally.

He faces up to five years in prison.

The New York City site runs under the cover of a Chinese organization called the America ChangLe Association in Manhattan’s Chinatown. The association ostensibly serves as a mingling place for immigrants from China’s southeastern Fujian Province, where the namesake district, ChangLe, is based.

Chen was the secretary general of the association at the time of the arrest, while the other man arrested, Lu Jianwang, was the former president. Lu, also known as “Harry Lu,” has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is awaiting trial.

The station was set up in mid-February 2022. It assisted an official from China’s Ministry of Public Security, the country’s police apparatus, to locate a person of interest, a California pro-democracy advocate who had served as an adviser to a 2022 congressional candidate from New York state, the federal complaint states.

According to the court document, weeks before the station came into being, Lu forwarded a notice to Chen that stated, “In order to establish a smooth connection to the remote checkup identification renewal system every overseas service station has to grant access privileges to the 110 system.”

The number 110 is synonymous with police in China.

The notice instructed recipients to provide the service station IP address to a designated email address.

Xi Jinping’s Visit

In 2015, during CCP leader Xi Jinping’s trip to Washington, Lu, along with other local Chinese association leaders, dispatched members of their organizations to participate in counterprotests against public demonstrations by practitioners of Falun Gong. The spiritual group, persecuted in China since 1999, was attempting to protest the regime’s ongoing suppression.

The court document included a photo showing Lu holding a plaque with a Chinese police official celebrating his work “in ensuring that members of the Falun Gong religion did not disturb President Xi’s visit.”

Lu Jianwang (R) receives a plaque from an official from China’s Ministry of Public Security in a ceremony after Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s 2015 visit to the United States. (Department of Justice)

Lu also acknowledged an affiliation with a former director of the 610 Office, a Gestapo-like agency created in 1999 specifically for to carry out the persecution of Falun Gong. He had brought the official to his hometown in China for a tour, court documents show.

Another New York City resident who appears to be a member of the America ChangLe Association, together with Lu, has been receiving assignments from Chinese officials to identify the Chinese regime’s targets since at least 2018, according to the filings.

The former in 2018 requested help from Lu to try to deport a Chinese dissident and green card holder from the United States back to China.

The dissident told the FBI of receiving threats of violence that same year. The dissident’s family in China was also harassed.

The co-conspirator also asked Lu to help find a Chinese national who had lived in Manhattan, as well as the person’s close associates.

In doing so, the co-conspirator shared the victim’s name, address as of 2016, birth date, and a photo of the person in a public park, stating the victim’s information was needed in relation to a lawsuit, the court document said.

The FBI raided the secret police station in October 2022 and seized the phones of both Lu and Chen. The agents noted that conversations with the Chinese police official had been deleted from these phones, the complaint states.

Beijing refuted Chen’s guilty plea.

“The so-called secret police stations do not exist,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in a press briefing on Dec. 19.

U.S. Attorney Breon Peace of the Eastern District of New York said the prosecution was part of his office’s efforts to protect vulnerable people who “come to this country to escape the repressive activities of authoritarian regimes.”

Countering the malign activities of foreign states that violate U.S. sovereignty by targeting local diaspora communities is a priority of his office, he said.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division called Chen’s effort in operating the secret outpost “brazen.”

The Department of Justice will “pursue anyone who attempts to aid the PRC’s efforts to extend their repressive reach into the United States,” he said, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.

Robert Wells, executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch, said Chen’s admission of guilt was “a stark reminder of the insidious efforts taken by the PRC government to threaten, harass, and intimidate those who speak against their communist party.”

“These blatant violations will not be tolerated on U.S. soil,” Wells said.

Update: This article has been updated with a statement from the Chinese foreign ministry.