Secret Chinese police in the heart of New York!

US Federal authorities in New York arrested two people on Monday on charges related to the establishment of a secret police station run by the Chinese government in Manhattan, because the center monitored Chinese pro-democracy activists.

The secret police, run by China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS), was announced alongside a complaint accusing 34 individuals of working for an MPS-run organization designed to target Chinese dissidents online.

And while in some cases it appears that the center was assisting Chinese citizens with services such as driver’s licenses, and things that require consular approval and the approval of the US authorities, it carried out an operation of espionage against Chinese activists, and US law enforcement authorities said on Monday, that the secret police employees weren’t registered as foreign agents.

“We don’t need or want a secret police station in our great city,” Brion Pace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, told a news conference.

“Just imagine the NYPD opening an undeclared secret police station in Beijing would be unimaginable”.

Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping have been charged with conspiracy to act as foreign agents, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison, in addition to obstruction of justice, which carries a penalty of up to 20 years.

The US federal authorities aren’t fully aware of all the activities in the police located in Chinatown, as Jianwang and Jinping deleted the information from their phones after initial contact by the US authorities, according to the authorities.

Pace said Monday that deletion of potential evidence was a hurdle in the case, but noted that authorities had some evidence that China directed police to spy on a pro-democracy activist in California.

“It seems that the use of the secret police station was more sinister and it seems that the Chinese National Police was using the station to track down a US resident on American soil,” he said.

China has been accused of setting up around 100 such police across the world, with Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain taking action to address them.

The case represents a major advance in law enforcement, with the US now the first country to make arrests in connection with China’s secret police stations abroad.