I'm Breon Peace, the United States Attorney for the Eastern
District of New York.
Today, we are announcing three impactful cases
from my office in our nation's fight
against the People's Republic of China's Transnational
Repression Activities.
The first two criminal complaints that I am announcing
shed further light on the extent of the PRC government's efforts
to project its authoritarian worldview on the residents
of this city and this country.
The two complaints charged more than 30 officers
with China's national police force, which
is called the Ministry of Public Security,
or the MPS and two New York City residents
with violations of US law.
Unlike typical officers, the MPS officers
who have been charged today are not
focused on preventing crime, rather, the complaints
charge these MPS officers with engaging
in transnational repression schemes targeting members
of the Chinese diaspora community in New York City
and elsewhere in the United States.
And as shown in these complaints,
the MPS has repeatedly and flagrantly
violated our nation's sovereignty,
including by opening and operating a police station
in the middle of New York City.
Here's what we know happened inside the secret police
station in lower Manhattan.
At the very least, the station was providing some government
services like helping Chinese citizens
renew their Chinese driver's licenses.
But to do even that, the law requires that individuals like
the defendants who act as agents of a foreign government
give prior notice to the attorney
general before setting up shop in New York City.
That didn't happen.
More troubling, though, is the fact
that the secret police station appears to have
had a more sinister use.
On at least one occasion, an official
with the Chinese national police directed one of the defendants,
a US citizen who worked at the secret police station,
to help locate a pro-democracy activist of Chinese descent
living in California.
In other words, the Chinese national police
appear to have been using the station to track
a US resident on US soil.
The two defendants whose arrest we're announcing today
destroyed evidence of their communications
with the Chinese national police when they learned
of the FBI's investigation.
These two defendants knew they had something to hide.
And they obstructed justice in an attempt
to prevent the FBI from learning the full extent
of what they were up to.