Guilty plea expected in secret Chinese police station case

(NEW YORK) — A guilty plea is expected Wednesday in the case of a secret Chinese police station operating in lower Manhattan.

The suspects in the case, Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, were accused by prosecutors last year of working on behalf of China’s Ministry of Public Security in violation of the Espionage Act.

Chen is expected to plead guilty to a charge of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government. Lu is due in court next in February.

At the time the case was charged in April 2023, the FBI called it in an example of China’s “audacious activities” on U.S. soil.

The location in Chinatown claimed to be a nonprofit organization helping Chinese-Americans but federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, who brought the case, said it “appears to have had a more sinister use.”

Prosecutors said the secret police station was set up by Chinese counterintelligence operatives to harass and intimidate dissidents living in the United States.