NEW YORK (AP) — A Manhattan resident has pleaded guilty to aiding create a secret police station in New York on behalf of the Chinese government.

Chen Jinping, 60, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a single count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government in Brooklyn federal court.

Matthew Olsen, an assistant attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice, said Chen admitted in court his role in “the audacious establishment of an undeclared police precinct” in Manhattan and his attempt to cover up his efforts when he was approached by the FBI.

“This illegal police station was not opened in the interest of public safety, but to further the PRC’s nefarious and repressive objectives, in direct violation of US sovereignty,” he said in a statement. statement, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

Prosecutors say Chen and his co-defendant, Lu Jianwang, opened and operated a local branch of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood starting in early 2022.

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

The Chinese police’s clandestine operation was shut down in fall 2022 amid an FBI investigation. But in an apparent effort to obstruct the federal investigation, Chen and Lu deleted communications from their phones with a Chinese government official to whom they reported, prosecutors said.

China is believed to be exploit such secret police outposts in North America, Europe and other places where Chinese communities are found. The country, however, has denied that these are police stationsclaiming that they exist primarily to provide services to citizens such as renewing driver’s licenses.

Chen and Lu’s arrest in April 2023 was part of a series of lawsuits against the Department of Justice aimed at cracking down on “transnational repression,” in which foreign governments like China work to identify, intimidate, and silence dissidents in the United States.

Attorneys for Chen and Lu did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment Wednesday. Chen faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced on May 30.

Lu, who is due back in court in February, had a long-standing relationship with Chinese law enforcement, according to prosecutors.

Over the years, they say, the Bronx resident, also known as Harry Lu, helped harass and threaten a Chinese fugitive living in the United States and also worked to locate a pro-democracy activist in California on behalf of the Chinese government.

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Follow Philippe Marcelo on twitter.com/philmarcelo.