New York Resident Chen Jinping Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Act as a Chinese Government Agent in Secret Police Station Case
In federal court in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, on December 18, Manhattan resident Chen Jinping, 60, pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an illegal agent of the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC), in connection with opening and operating an undeclared overseas police station in lower Manhattan for the PRC's Ministry of Public Security (MPS). The proceeding was held before U.S. District Judge Nina R. Morrison. When sentenced, Chen faces up to five years in prison.
The guilty plea was announced by Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; Matthew G. Olsen, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department's National Security Division; and James E. Dennehy, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's New York Field Office. Peace said a priority of his office has been to counteract the malign activities of foreign governments that violate the nation's sovereignty by targeting local diaspora communities, and that a participant in a transnational repression scheme who worked to establish a secret police station in the middle of New York City on behalf of the PRC's national police force had now pleaded guilty. Olsen said the defendant had brazenly operated an undeclared overseas police station on behalf of the PRC's national police force, a clear affront to American sovereignty that will not be tolerated.
As alleged in court filings and facts presented at the plea proceeding, Chen and co-defendant Lu Jianwang conspired to act as illegal agents of the PRC government while acting under the direction and control of an MPS official, and also obstructed justice by destroying evidence of their communications with that official. Together they established the first known overseas police station in the United States on behalf of the Fuzhou branch of the MPS. The station, which closed in the fall of 2022, occupied an entire floor of an office building in Manhattan's Chinatown. None of the participants informed the U.S. government that they were helping the PRC government open and operate an undeclared MPS police station on U.S. soil.
In October 2022, the FBI conducted a court-authorized search of the station, interviewed both defendants and seized their phones; agents reviewing the phones observed that communications between the defendants and the MPS official appeared to have been deleted.
Under Chen's plea agreement, the government has agreed to dismiss the obstruction of justice charge against him. Lu Jianwang has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and is awaiting trial. The FBI is investigating the case. The prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alexander A. Solomon and Antoinette N. Rangel for the Eastern District of New York, with assistance from Trial Attorney Scott A. Claffee of the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. Docket No. 23-CR-316 (NRM). (Source: U.S. Department of Justice)
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于布鲁克林 Cadman Plaza East 225号的 Theodore Roosevelt 联邦法院大楼，纽约东区联邦地区法院所在地，陈金平在此出庭认罪。Beyond My Ken 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Theodore Roosevelt United States Courthouse at 225 Cadman Plaza East in Brooklyn, home of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, where Chen Jinping entered his guilty plea. Photo by Beyond My Ken, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
