The FBI on Monday arrested two New York residents on charges of opening and operating an “off-the-books” Chinese police outpost in lower Manhattan since February last year to track, intimidate, and stifle dissenters of the ruling Communist Party in China.
Charges were also filed against 34 officials under China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS) for allegedly harassing Chinese nationals in New York using fake social media profiles. Another nine individuals believed to be based in China were added to a previous complaint for allegedly conspiring to commit interstate harassment by utilizing a U.S. telecommunications company to target a New York-based CCP dissident.
The trio of cases shows the extent to which China monitors and attempts to stamp out critics, even those outside its borders.
The complaint said the hidden police station—located at the office of Lu and Chen’s nonprofit at 107 East Broadway, which is within New York’s Chinatown—was opened on Feb. 15, 2022, without diplomatic approval from the U.S.
The office was closed in the fall of 2022 amid scrutiny over the legality of its operations.
Investigation outlined in the complaint revealed that [one of the arrested conspirators] even posed for a picture with a sign that read “Fuzhou Public Security Bureau, Overseas 110 Report to Police Service Station.”
