a Chinese spy who Ran a “secret police station” in Manhattan He faces up to five years in prison if he plead guilty Wednesday to acting as an illegal foreign agent to help Beijing target government dissidents, federal prosecutors said.
Chen Jinping, 60, admitted in Brooklyn federal court to “conspiring” to act on behalf of the People’s Republic of China without informing US authorities.
Chen stands accused in September 2022 of deleting an online article about the alleged police station — which prosecutors say occupied an entire floor of a Chinatown building near the Manhattan Bridge — for his Beijing masters.
“I knowingly agreed to act as a foreign agent for a foreign government,” he told Judge Nina Morrison, speaking through an interpreter.
But when the judge asked him which government he was working for, he behaved seriously.
Chen tried in vain to avoid the question by briefly repeating “the government” – and only admitted after being pressed again by the judge that he was representing China.
He said, “At the time I did this, I did not inform the Attorney General that I was acting as a foreign agent, and I was not registered as a foreign agent.”
Chen and his alleged accomplice “Harry” Lu Jianwang, 61, were arrested in April 2023 and accused of opening a secret outpost that was closed in early 2022.
Court documents claim that Lu, whose case is still pending, allegedly helped Chinese security officials track down dissidents living in the US.
The feds allege that the two tried to conceal their crimes by deleting their communications with a Chinese Ministry of Public Security official after learning they were under investigation.
The arrests were part of what prosecutors at the time called a broader crackdown on Beijing’s influence campaign in the US.
“This prosecution exposes the Chinese government’s blatant violation of our nation’s sovereignty by setting up a secret police station in the middle of New York City,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Brian Peace, said in a statement at the time.
Peace said Wednesday that Chen’s guilty plea reflects his office’s “priority” to “respond to the malign activities of foreign governments that violate our nation’s sovereignty.”
Chen will be sentenced on May 30, 2025.
(TagstoTranslate)Metro(T)US News(T)Brooklyn Federal Court(T)Chinatown(T)New York City(T)Police(T)Detective
