In a recent report, the Madrid-based human rights group Safeguard Defenders revealed the existence of a second Chinese police station in New York, in addition to the one mentioned above, located above of a noodle shop in Manhattan’s Chinatown. .
The report also revealed that there was a branch in Los Angeles. The same organization released a report the year before that listed 100 secret Chinese police stations that were active around the world.
San Francisco, Houston, Nebraska and Minnesota are among other US cities that Safeguard Defenders has identified as having Chinese “overseas gas stations” in addition to New York and Los Angeles. These stations are secretly operated by the Chinese Communist Party and are responsible for spying on Chinese nationals anywhere in the world.
“We found at least four listed in the United States by public security authorities in the PRC (People’s Republic of China), and reported four other overseas Chinese service centers in the United States set up by the networks UFWD responsible for running the stations,” a spokeswoman for Safeguard Defenders told The Post on Tuesday.
A Chinese government agency called the United Front Work Department (UFWD) is responsible for handling racial and religious affairs outside of Chinese territory. According to findings by Safeguard Defenders, these police stations often act as non-profit organizations and community groups while their officers allegedly spy on dissidents and others.
According to an article in The Post in October, the America ChangLe Association NY Inc., which owns the property at 107 East Broadway, served as the administrative body for the Chinatown police station. According to records, the nonprofit, which bills itself as a “social gathering place for people in Fujian”, paid $1.3 million in 2016 to acquire the office suite at the East Broadway property. where the overseas Chinese affairs branch of the Fuzhou police was housed. .
The nonprofit organization hosted a gala dinner last year with New York City Mayor Eric Adams as a special guest. On the mayor’s official agenda, this event was not made public. The FBI on Monday arrested two people, Harry Lu Jianwang, 61, of the Bronx, and Chen Jinping, 59, of Manhattan, for allegedly establishing the Fuzhou branch based at the East Broadway station of China’s Ministry of Public Security.
The pair, Harry Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, reportedly shut down the Fuzhou branch of China’s Ministry of Public Security, which is located at East Broadway Station, last year after learning of an investigation federal government on their actions, according to a statement. of the US Department of Justice.
Lu and Chen “helped open and operate the underground police station while acting under the direction and control of an MPS (China’s Ministry of Public Security) official,” according to the DOJ statement. “None of the participants in the scheme disclosed to the US government that they were assisting the PRC government in secretly establishing and operating an MPS police station on US soil.”