A New York man has pleaded guilty to helping establish a secret police station in Manhattan on behalf of the Chinese government.
Chen Jinping, 60, entered the guilty plea on one count of conspiring to act as an agent of China at Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday.
Prosecutors said Chen and his co-defendant,“Harry” Lu Jianwang, opened and operated a local branch of China’s Ministry of Public Security in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood in the beginning of 2022.
The police station occupied an entire floor in an office building. It closed in the fall of 2022.
Matthew Olsen, an assistant attorney general in the US Department of Justice, described Chen’s actions as a “a clear affront to American sovereignty and danger to our community that will not be tolerated.”
Authorities said Chen and Lu also obstructed justice by destroying evidence of their communications with an official from China’s Ministry of Public Security.
In October 2022, the FBI searched the police station and interviewed the pair, before seizing their phones.
They admitted to deleting communications between them and the Chinese official after learning about the ongoing FBI investigation, the US Department of Justice said.
Chen faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
As part of his plea deal, the government agreed to dismiss the obstruction of justice charge against him.