Jinping admitted that he helped set up a secret Chinese police station in New York

New York-based Chinese-American Chen Jinping pleaded guilty today to helping set up a secret police station in New York on behalf of the Chinese government.

Jinping pleaded guilty today to one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government in federal court in Brooklyn. Chen faces up to five years in prison at his sentencing on May 30.

Matthew Olsen, an assistant attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice, said Chen admitted in court to his role in "setting up a police station" in Manhattan and trying to hide that effort when approached by the FBI.

"This illegal police station was not opened in the interest of public safety, but to further China's nefarious and repressive goals in direct violation of American sovereignty," he said in a statement.

Prosecutors allege that Chen and his co-defendant Lu Jianwang opened and ran a local branch of China's Ministry of Public Security in Manhattan's Chinatown in early 2022.

The office, which occupied an entire floor of the building, performed basic services, such as helping Chinese citizens renew their Chinese driver's licenses, but also identified pro-democracy activists living in the US for targeting, according to federal authorities.

A covert operation by Chinese police was revealed in the fall of 2022 amid an FBI investigation. But in an attempt to obstruct the federal investigation, Chen and Lu deleted communications with a Chinese government official from their phones, prosecutors allege.

China is believed to have established such secret police outposts in North America, Europe and other places where there are Chinese communities. Official Beijing, however, has denied that these are police stations, saying they mainly exist to provide services to citizens such as renewing driver's licenses.

The April 2023 arrest of Chen and Lu was part of a series of Justice Department lawsuits aimed at curbing "transnational repression," in which foreign governments like China work to identify, intimidate and silence dissidents in the US.

Lu, who is due back in court in February, maintained a longstanding relationship with Chinese law enforcement officials, prosecutors said.