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The plain, glass-clad building stands six stories between a hotel, a spa and a coffee shop in the heart of Manhattan\u2019s Chinatown neighborhood.<\/p>\n
U.S. prosecutors say it was a\u00a0secret Chinese spy outpost,\u00a0with orders from Beijing to silence, harass and intimidate pro-democracy dissidents in the U.S., and a banner inside that said: \u201cFuzhou Police Overseas Service Station, New York USA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the man accused of running it, Lu Jianwang, contend it was a community center \u2014 and nothing more \u2014 where members of the Chinese diaspora could remotely renew their Chinese driver\u2019s licenses amid COVID-19 pandemic-era travel restrictions and meet to play ping-pong and mahjong.<\/p>\n
Lu, 64, went on trial Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court, more than three years after U.S. authorities arrested him at his Bronx home on charges he conspired to act as a foreign agent and destroyed evidence, including WeChat messages with his purported Chinese government handler.<\/p>\n
Lu, a U.S. citizen for decades, \u201cwas living in New York City but he was working for the Chinese government,\u201d prosecutor Lindsey Oken said in an opening statement.<\/p>\n
Lu and a co-defendant\u00a0who has pleaded guilty,\u00a0Chen Jinping, established the Chinatown outpost in 2022 after Lu attended a ceremony in his native Fujian province where China\u2019s Ministry of Public Security announced it was opening 30 such secret police stations around the world, Oken said.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s communist government uses the outposts to monitor people it \u201cviews as enemies of its interests,\u201d Oken told jurors. Among the witnesses set to testify against Lu, she said, is a dissident who was targeted by his outpost.<\/p>\n
The Manhattan outpost shared offices with the America ChangLe Association, a community organization that Lu and his brother, Jimmy, helped run and that described itself on tax forms as a \u201csocial gathering place for Fujianese people.\u201d ChangLe means \u201ceternal joy,\u201d a defense lawyer said.<\/p>\n
Oken acknowledged the organization was open about its driver\u2019s license service \u2014 but even doing that was illegal under U.S. law, she said.<\/p>\n
Lu worked for China \u201cwithout asking or telling the U.S. government,\u201d violating the federal\u00a0Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires people acting as agents of a foreign government or entity to register with the Justice Department, Oken said.<\/p>\n
Lu\u2019s lawyer, John Carman portrayed the case as a mundane bureaucratic blip, not an international spy thriller.<\/p>\n
\u201cLu was arrested for essentially failing to file a form,\u201d he told jurors.<\/p>\n
Evidence will show that Lu is \u201cnot a spy, not a part of Chinese intelligence services, not a part of the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, and he\u2019s not an agent of the Chinese government,\u201d Carman said in his opening statement. He said the case brought two phrases to mind: \u201cNo good deed goes unpunished\u201d and \u201cGuilt by association.\u201d<\/p>\n
The FBI, spurred by a report from an organization that monitors Chinese transnational repression, raided the alleged New York City outpost on Oct. 3, 2022, rifling through drawers and paperwork, busting into locked cabinets and a safe, and seizing a computer and cellphones, Carman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey turned the place upside down,\u201d Carman told jurors.<\/p>\n
The next day, Oken said, Lu admitted to FBI agents that he established the Manhattan outpost, that he kept in touch with his handler via WeChat and that he had deleted those messages. Carman said neither of Lu\u2019s two-hour FBI interviews were recorded. Lu was arrested in April 2023.<\/p>\n
Lu\u2019s co-defendant, Chen, pleaded guilty in December 2024 to a charge of conspiracy to act as a foreign agent. He remains free on bond and will be sentenced after Lu\u2019s trial.<\/p>\n
Lu, who also goes by Harry Lu, sat at the defense table Wednesday alongside Baimadajie Angwang, a former NYPD officer who was cleared three years ago of charges accusing him of being\u00a0an \u201cintelligence asset\u201d\u00a0for the Chinese government. Angwang, who is suing to rejoin the police force, is working as an investigator for Lu\u2019s defense team.<\/p>\n
Lu, wearing a dark suit, pale blue tie and glasses, speaks limited English and listened through an earpiece as an interpreter translated Oken and Carman\u2019s words into Fujianese. He and Angwang both had American flag pins affixed to their lapels.<\/p>\n
Several dozen supporters, including members of Lu\u2019s church, rallied outside of the courthouse, holding signs with slogans like \u201cJustice for Harry Lu\u201d and \u201cChinese Americans Are Americans!\u201d and waving small American flags, as Lu and his legal team arrived.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one controls him,\u201d Carman told jurors. \u201cIf Harry Lu is an agent of anyone, he is an agent for his community \u2014 the local people in his community.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have the life of an innocent man in your hands,\u201d the lawyer concluded.<\/p>\n
#secret #Chinese #spy #headquarters #pingpong #parlor #York #Chinatown #case #trial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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