By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York resident who prosecutors say operated a "secret police station" in the Chinatown district of Manhattan to aid Beijing's targeting of dissidents, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent.
Chen Jinping, 61, entered the plea at a hearing in Brooklyn Federal Court before U.S. District Judge Nina Morrison. He faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced on May 30.
In court, Chen admitted to removing an online article about the alleged police station on behalf of China's government in September 2022. He said he was not registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent at the time, as U.S. law requires of people acting for other countries.
Chen and a New York-based co-defendant, Lu Jianwang, were initially arrested on April 17, 2023. Lu has pleaded not guilty to the same charge, as well as to obstruction of justice.
The arrests followed a 2022 investigation published by Spain-based advocacy group Safeguard Defenders that reported China had set up overseas "service stations," including in New York, that illegally worked with Chinese police to pressure fugitives to return to China.
The Department of Justice has been ramping up probes into what it calls "transnational repression" by U.S. adversaries such as China and Iran to intimidate political opponents living in the United States.
China's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Chen's plea.
The Chinese government has said there are centers outside China run by local volunteers, not Chinese police officers, that aim to help Chinese citizens renew documents and offer other services. Beijing has accused Washington of fabricating the charges to smear China's image.
Lu and Chen are U.S. citizens who ran a nonprofit organization that lists its mission as providing a social gathering place for people from China's Fujian province, prosecutors said.
Before it closed in the fall of 2022, the men's New York operation occupied a full floor in a nondescript Chinatown building near the Manhattan Bridge (NASDAQ:LOAN).
Prosecutors said the site was being used in part for mundane government services such as helping some Chinese citizens renew their driver's licenses - activity they say should have been disclosed to U.S. authorities.
But prosecutors also said that in 2022, Lu was asked by Beijing to locate an individual living in California who was considered a pro-democracy activist. In 2018, Lu had sought to persuade an individual considered a fugitive by China to return home, prosecutors said.