DOJ charges nearly four dozen defendants over China's efforts to target dissidents and operate a secret police station in NYC

• The feds charged 46 defendants in three separate cases connected to China's covert operations on US soil.
• Two men are accused of hosting a secret Chinese police outpost in Manhattan.

The Justice Department announced charges Monday against 46 people in connection to the Chinese government's efforts to spread propaganda in the US and target dissidents on US soil. The announcement marks one of the first criminal prosecutions related to the shadowy network of police stations China maintains outside its territory and without the host state's approval.

Officials announced a trio of cases against a total of 46 defendants:

• One case accuses two New York men — Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping — of operating an "undeclared secret police station" for the Ministry of Public Security, which is China's national police force, out of Chinatown in Manhattan. The New York Times reported that it wasn't immediately clear if Lu and Chen had lawyers.
• The second case accuses 34 members of an MPS task force of operating an internet troll farm to target and harass Chinese dissidents and pro-democracy activists.
• The third case charges a total of 10 defendants with conspiracy to commit interstate harassment and unlawful conspiracy to transfer means of identification. The complaint accuses a former China-based employee of a US tech company of working closely with the MPS to stifle free speech online. Among other things, officials accused the former employee, Julien Jin, of removing content that was critical of the Chinese government and fabricating evidence of Terms of Service violations in order to shut down virtual meetings organized by those critical of the Chinese Communist Party.

The US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Breon Peace, announced the three cases in a news conference Monday.

Peace said the cases are critical to the US's "fight against the People's Republic of China's transnational activities" and added that the MPS has "repeatedly and flagrantly violated our nation's sovereignty."

The secret police outpost that Lu and Chen are accused of operating was located two miles from the EDNY's office, Peace said. The station was shut down last fall after the two defendants learned of an FBI investigation into the matter, prosecutors said. Lu and Chen have been charged with obstruction of justice, and they're also accused of destroying evidence after finding out about the FBI's inquiry. They were arrested in New York City on Monday morning.

Peace said that the police outpost conducted "some government services," but that in order to do so, individuals acting as foreign government agents must notify the US attorney general of their activities, which the defendants did not do.

More importantly, he added, the outpost had a "more sinister use," including in one instance, trying to locate and track a pro-democracy Chinese dissident on US soil.

It would have been "unthinkable" if the New York Police Department tried to do the same in Beijing, Peace said.

The second case revolves around nearly three dozen MPS officers accused of being part of a task force called the "912 special project working group."

Peace said that rather than working to "protect people or combat crimes," this task force "commits crimes" by targeting Chinese activists and dissidents online.

Specifically, officials accused the defendants of trying to "harass" and "threaten" organizers that the Chinese government views as a threat to the Chinese Communist Party whose leaders rule China.

Among other things, the feds say that the 34 defendants repeatedly tried to interfere with and shut down virtual meetings hosted by opponents of CCP; used fake online personas to spread Chinese government propaganda and stoke political divisions ahead of US elections; and amplify conspiracy theories about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a result of the case, Peace said, "the world now has a unique, never before seen view of how the PRC government deployed this army of internet trolls."

The third case, which was announced by DOJ official David Newman, accuses Jin, the former US tech employee, of working with the MPS to scrub online content that was critical of the PRC. Other defendants named in the complaint include six MPS officers, two individuals working for the Cyberspace Administration of China, and one other civilian.

That defendants' alleged crimes "created real effects for victims in the United states, victims whose rights the Department of Justice is committed to protecting," said Newman, who serves as the principal deputy assistant attorney general for the DOJ's national security division.

The three cases detail how China "has engaged in a multi-front campaign to extend the reach and impact of its authoritarian system into the United States and elsewhere around the world," Newman added.

Officials said Monday that the MPS is the common thread in the cases, and Newman said they show how the organization's actual role is more broad, "extending to intelligence and national security operations far beyond China's borders."

Update: This article has been updated to reflect 10 total defendants charged in connection with efforts to remove online content critical of the Chinese Communist Party, per newly unsealed indictments.