By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York resident who prosecutors say operated a “secret police station” in Manhattan’s Chinatown district to help Beijing target dissidents, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent.
Chen Jinping, 61, pleaded guilty at a hearing in Brooklyn Federal Court before U.S. District Judge Nina Morrison. He faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced on May 30.
In court, Chen admitted to deleting an online article about the alleged police station on behalf of the Chinese government in September 2022. He said he was not registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent at the time, as required by law. American to people who act for other countries.
Chen and a New York-based co-defendant, Lu Jianwang, were initially arrested on April 17, 2023. Lu pleaded not guilty to the same charge, as well as obstruction of justice.
The arrests followed a 2022 investigation published by Spain-based advocacy group Safeguard Defenders, which reported that China had set up “gas stations” abroad, including in New York, that were illegally working with Chinese police. to pressure the fugitives to return to China.
The Justice Department has been stepping up investigations into what it calls “transnational repression” by U.S. adversaries such as China and Iran to intimidate political opponents living in the United States.
China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Chen’s petition.
The Chinese government has said there are centers outside China run by local volunteers, not Chinese police officers, that aim to help Chinese citizens renew documents and offer other services. Beijing has accused Washington of fabricating the charges to smear China’s image.
Lu and Chen are American citizens who ran a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide a social gathering place for people in China’s Fujian province, prosecutors said.
Before closing in the fall of 2022, the New York men’s operation occupied an entire floor in a nondescript Chinatown building near the Manhattan Bridge (NASDAQ:).
Prosecutors said the site was being used in part for mundane government services, such as helping some Chinese citizens renew their driver’s licenses, activity they say should have been disclosed to U.S. authorities.
But prosecutors also said that in 2022, Beijing asked Lu to locate a person living in California who was considered a pro-democracy activist. In 2018, Lu had tried to persuade an individual considered a fugitive by China to return home, prosecutors said.