NEW YORK (AP) — A person accused of operating a secret Chinese language spy outpost in New York Metropolis was convicted Wednesday of performing as an unlawful overseas agent and destroying textual content messages from a Chinese language authorities handler.
Lu Jianwang, 64, was acquitted of a associated conspiracy cost in a case that pitted U.S. considerations about China’s crackdown on pro-democracy dissidents towards the protection’s rivalry that prosecutors twisted a well-meaning Chinese language American group chief’s bureaucratic misstep to place him in jail.
Lu spoke to supporters as he left Brooklyn federal courtroom however declined to reply questions from reporters. His lawyer, John Carman, mentioned federal prosecutors dressed up a secular paperwork case with specious solutions that Lu was concerned in spying and intelligence gathering.
Lu, who additionally goes by Harry Lu, stays free on bail pending sentencing, which has not been scheduled.
In accordance with federal prosecutors, Lu and a co-defendant, Chen Jinping, established the outpost in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood in 2022 after Lu attended a ceremony in his native Fujian province the place China’s Ministry of Public Safety introduced it was opening 30 such secret police stations all over the world.
China’s communist authorities makes use of the outposts to watch individuals it views as enemies of its pursuits. In the course of the trial, jurors have been proven a big banner from the Chinatown location that mentioned: “Fuzhou Police Abroad Service Station, New York USA.”
Chen pleaded responsible in December 2024 to a cost of conspiracy to behave as a overseas agent.
Lu’s attorneys contend the outpost was actually a group heart the place members of the Chinese language diaspora might remotely renew their Chinese language driver’s licenses amid COVID-19 pandemic-era journey restrictions and meet to play ping-pong and mahjong. Even when Lu’s solely connection to China was by way of driver’s licenses, that might be sufficient to violate the overseas agent regulation, prosecutors mentioned.
The Manhattan outpost shared places of work with the America ChangLe Affiliation, a group group that Lu, a U.S. citizen for many years, and his brother, Jimmy, helped run. The group described itself on tax kinds as a “social gathering place for Fujianese individuals.” ChangLe means “everlasting pleasure,” Carman mentioned.
The FBI, spurred by a report from a company that screens Chinese language transnational repression, raided the alleged New York Metropolis outpost on Oct. 3, 2022, rifling by way of drawers and paperwork, busting into locked cupboards and a protected, and seizing a pc and cellphones.
The subsequent day, prosecutors mentioned, Lu admitted to FBI brokers that he established the Manhattan outpost, that he stored in contact together with his handler by way of WeChat and that he had deleted these messages.