New York Man Pleads Guilty to Operating Secret Chinese Police Station

Chen Jinping admitted to acting as an illegal agent for China, running an unregistered police outpost in Manhattan to monitor dissidents.

Chen Jinping, a naturalized U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent for the Chinese government and faces up to five years in prison.
The clandestine police station operated out of Manhattan's Chinatown, providing administrative services like driver's license renewals while surveilling pro-democracy activists in the U.S.
Federal prosecutors revealed that Chen and co-defendant Lu Jianwang, who has pleaded not guilty, deleted communications with China's Ministry of Public Security to obstruct an FBI investigation.
The station, shut down in late 2022, is part of a broader network of over 100 similar outposts reported worldwide, allegedly used by China to intimidate dissidents.
U.S. officials condemned the operation as a violation of sovereignty and part of China's transnational repression efforts targeting diaspora communities.