An American has entered a guilty plea to assisting the Chinese government in operating what has been called the first covert police station in the United States.
On behalf of China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS), Chen Jinping and his co-defendant Lu Jianwang, according to the prosecution, established and ran the station in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood in the beginning of 2022.
Rights groups have accused China of using the outposts to monitor and intimidate Chinese nationals abroad, citing at least 100 such stations reported globally across 53 nations.
China, however, has disputed that they are police stations, claiming instead that they are “service stations” that offer administrative support to its citizens abroad.
