Chinese Man Pleads Guilty to Running Illegal Police Station in NYC
At the 2022 World Falun Dafa Day Parade in New York, members of the Falun Gong carry parasols and wear yellow shirts. The Chinese government has outlawed the organization and, federal prosecutors say, harass its members on U.S. soil. Photo credit: nejc ketis / Shutterstock.com.
As a part of his plea agreement, Jinping will not be charged with obstruction of justice and will face up to five years in prison, according to the DOJ press release. Lu pleaded not guilty and is still awaiting trial.
Finding People on Behalf of the Chinese Government
Jinping worked together with his co-defendant, Lu Jianwang, aka “Harry Lu,” who has been accused of assisting the Chinese since 2015 government by helping to find people they are interested in locating and participating in Washington, D.C., protests against Falun Gong, a religion that has been forbidden in China since 1999, according to the sworn complaint.
Jinping and Lu, as he is referred to in court documents, are both U.S. citizens who are leaders of a lower Manhatten-based nonprofit organization that court documents call “the Association,” established in 2013 to be a “social gathering place for Fujianese people,” according to the affidavit. Jinping and Lu also ran the illegal police station together under the direction of the MPS to oppress Falun Gong practitioners.
As detailed in the affidavit and further explained in coverage by The Daily Muck, Falun Gong is an outlawed religion founded in the PRC in May 1992. By 1999, the PRC government declared the “Rule of Law” against the religion, claiming that they were “spreading anti-government propaganda.”
China’s Human Rights Violations Against the Falun Gong
Although China has repeatedly denied the claims, they have been accused of human rights violations, abuse and harassment of Falun Gong practitioners. The U.S. government even issued sanctions in 2021 against the PRC government for its reported treatment of Falun Gong practitioners.
Lu began helping China locate people of interest in 2018, using the Association to repeatedly harass people they believed to be practitioners of Falun Gong and try to force them to return to the PRC, according to witness statements in the affidavit.
Fuzhou Police Station for Overseas Chinese
In 2022, Lu and Jinping created the Fuzhou Police Station for Overseas Chinese (FPSSOC), which worked for the PRC government without the approval of the Attorney General, according to court documents.
Demanded Media Outlet Remove Article
On Sept. 24, 2022, Jinping, acting as part of the police department, sent a message to the media outlet chinanews.com, demanding that they remove an article entitled “110 OVERSEAS: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild” that they had published 12 days earlier, according to the affidavit. The media outlet immediately removed the article.
The FBI searched the police station on Oct. 3, 2022, and interviewed Lu the next day, according to the affidavit. During the search and interviews, they discovered that Lu and Jinping had tried to delete their WeChat messages between themselves and other PRC officials. Lu also denied being asked to locate anyone in the U.S. on the PRC’s orders, responding, “I cannot be 100% sure. They did ask me to get information on the Falun Gong.”
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