{"id":232162,"date":"2026-05-15T00:08:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T00:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/232162\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T00:08:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T00:08:26","slug":"nyc-man-convicted-of-running-secret-police-station-linked-to-chinese-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/232162\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC man convicted of running secret police station linked to Chinese government"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man accused of running a secret Chinese<\/a> spy outpost in a New York<\/a> City police station has been convicted of acting as an illegal foreign agent.<\/p>\n

Lu Jianwang, a U.S. citizen also known as \u201cHarry Lu,\u201d opened the station in lower Manhattan in 2022 on behalf of China\u2019s Ministry of Public Security<\/a>. The MPS is China\u2019s<\/a> primary domestic law enforcement and intelligence agency.\u200b<\/p>\n

On Wednesday he was convicted on one count of acting as an illegal agent of the government of the People\u2019s Republic of China<\/a> and one count of obstruction of justice for destroying related evidence. Now, he faces up to 30 years behind bars.\u200b<\/p>\n

\u201cLu Jianwang used a police station in New York City to target PRC dissidents in furtherance of the Chinese government\u2019s political agenda,\u201d James C. Barnacle Jr., the assistant director in charge of the FBI\u2019s New York Field Office, said.<\/p>\n

\"Lu<\/p>\n

Lu Jianwang operated an overseas police station on behalf of the Chinese government, according to prosecutors (AP)<\/p>\n

Beginning in January 2022, under orders from an official at the MPS, Lu, his co-defendant Chen Jinping, and others established the first known overseas police station in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u200bLocated in Manhattan\u2019s Chinatown<\/a>, the police station was part of a global scheme to create similar sites all over the world, prosecutors say. \u200b<\/p>\n

Lu\u2019s MPS handler tasked him with collecting information on behalf of the Chinese government, including the location of a pro-democracy advocate who had fled China for the United States.<\/p>\n

\u200bIn October 2022, the FBI conducted a search of the police<\/a> station.<\/p>\n

Lu and Chen were interviewed in connection with the search, and their phones<\/a> were seized, with authorities noting that WeChat<\/a> messages between the pair and their MPS handler had been deleted. \u200b<\/p>\n

\"Lu<\/p>\n

Lu and his co-defendant Chen Jinping established the police station (pictured) in Lower Manhattan (Getty)<\/p>\n

A blue banner reading \u201cFuzhou Police Overseas Service Station, New York, USA,\u201d was also recovered from the site.<\/p>\n

\u200bChen pleaded guilty<\/a> to conspiring to act as an agent of the PRC in connection with the station in December 2024. He currently awaits sentencing.<\/p>\n

\u200bLu, who also awaits sentencing, remains free on bail, according to The Associated Press<\/a>. He faces 10 years behind bars for acting as an illegal foreign agent and up to 20 years in prison for the obstruction of justice. \u200b<\/p>\n

The 64-year-old\u2019s defense team claims that the police station was really a community center where people could renew their Chinese driver\u2019s licenses remotely without having to go back to China, amid travel restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic<\/a>. \u200b<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

John Carman, Lu’s lawyer, (right) says that he will appeal the verdict (AP)<\/p>\n

Lu\u2019s lawyer, John Carman, also claimed that people would meet there to play ping-pong and mahjong. He told reporters that he would appeal the verdict. \u200b<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not espionage. This is not spying. This is not intelligence gathering,\u201d Carman said. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t charged with any of that.\u201d\u200b<\/p>\n

According to prosecutors, the MPS<\/a> has used contacts both within China and around the world to \u201cinfluence, threaten, and coerce political dissidents abroad,\u201d in an effort to silence them, prosecutors say.\u200b<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man accused of running a secret Chinese spy outpost in a New York City police station has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[87601,827,39170,90568,87505,87602,9,24,56,63,65,64,87401,90625],"class_list":["post-232162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-chen-jinping","tag-china","tag-chinese-government","tag-foreign-agent","tag-harry-lu","tag-lu-jianwang","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-obstruction-of-justice","tag-police-station"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}