13 Chinese indicted for trying to influence U.S.

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Federal authorities unsealed charges Monday against a dozen people, including members of China’s security and intelligence apparatus, for allegedly trying to exert influence in the United States to benefit their own country.

Three cases were filed in New York and New Jersey, including:

Seven Chinese nationals – two of whom were arrested on Thursday in New York – were charged with participating in a scheme to force the repatriation of a Chinese national living in the United States. The charges include surveillance and engaging in a campaign to harass and coerce the U.S. resident under a campaign known as “Operation Fox Hunt.”

Two Chinese intelligence officers were charged Monday with attempting to obstruct a criminal prosecution in New York. The defendants remain at large. They were charged with trying to steal confidential information from a global telecommunications company.

Four Chinese nationals, including three Ministry of State Security intelligence officers, where charged Monday in New Jersey for allegedly taking part in a long-running intelligence campaign targeting U.S. individuals to act as agents of China.

“As these cases demonstrate, the government of China sought to interfere with the rights and freedoms of individuals in the United States and to undermine our judicial system that protects those rights. They did not succeed,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by any foreign power to undermine the rule of law upon which our democracy is based.”

An eight-count indictment in Brooklyn charged two residents of Roslyn, New York – Quanzhong An, 55, and Guangyang An, 34 – and five residents of China: Tian Peng, 38; Chenghua Chen; Chunde Ming; Xuexin Hou, 52; and Weidong Yuan, 55.

Quanzhong An and Guangyang An were arrested Thursday and arraigned Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ramon Reyes. The remaining defendants remain at large.

The lead defendant, Quanzhong An, the majority owner of a hotel in Queens, allegedly acted at the direction of China’s Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection to conduct surveillance of and engage in a campaign to harass and coerce a U.S. resident to return to China as part of an international repatriation effort known as “Operation Fox Hunt.”

In the Brooklyn case, two defendants – Dong He, who is also known as Guochun He or Jacky He, and Zheng Wang, who is also known as Zen Wang – allegedly orchestrated a scheme to steal files and other information from the U.S. Attorney’s Office related to the ongoing federal criminal investigation and prosecution of a global telecommunications company based in China, according to charging documents.

The defendants allegedly paid a $41,000 Bitcoin bribe to a U.S. government employee, who was a double-agent working for the FBI rather than for China, Garland said.

The defendants believed they had recruited the U.S. government employee as an asset,” Garland said. “But in fact, the individual they recruited was actually a double agent, working on behalf of the FBI.”

The New Jersey case charged Wang Lin, 59; Bi Hongwei, age unknown; Dong Ting, who is also known as Chelsea Dong, 40; Wang Qiang, 55, and others with engaging in a wide-ranging and systematic effort to target and recruit individuals to act on behalf of China in the United States from 2008 to 2018.