<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/17/chinese-police-station-china-dissidents-fbi-arrests>
"The FBI has arrested two men accused of running a covert station for China’s
police force in New York, and using it as a base to track Chinese dissidents
living in the US.
The station, in Manhattan’s Chinatown, was allegedly set up in February 2022
and operated by Beijing’s ministry of public security (MPS) as part of a
campaign of transnational repression against Chinese pro-democracy activists
and other political opponents around the world.
The justice department also announced charges on Monday against 40 MPS officers
and four others for allegedly running an internet troll operation against
dissidents in the US, creating fake social media accounts to harass them and
recruiting an employee at an unnamed US telecoms company to have a
pro-democracy activist removed from the platform. The officers, thought to be
in China, are alleged to be members of an MPS unit, the “912 special project
working group”, dedicated to the pursuit of dissidents abroad.
The alleged secret police station in New York was raided in October, and on
Monday morning the FBI arrested two New Yorkers suspected of running it.
China has insisted that the New York site and similar offices around the world
are run by volunteers and are not connected with the police. On Tuesday a
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson again denied all accusations of an
overseas police presence and accused the US of making “groundless accusations”.
Breon Peace, the US attorney for the eastern district of New York, said there
was now evidence of direct ties between Chinese police and the New York site.
“Two miles from our office, just across the Brooklyn Bridge, this nondescript
office building in the heart of bustling Chinatown in lower Manhattan had a
dark secret until several months ago. An entire floor of this building hosted
an undeclared police station of the Chinese national police,” Peace said.
The station provided some Chinese government services, like helping renew
driving licences, but failed to register with the justice department as agents
of a foreign government, the charges said."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
