On Monday, the Justice Department unveiled charges in three distinct cases against more than a dozen defendants, the majority of whom were Chinese officials, charging them with taking part in plots to repatriate political opponents of the Chinese government, obtaining information about a U.S. investigation into a Chinese telecom company, and hiring spies to work as Chinese government agents in the U.S.
Along with senior Justice Department officials and FBI Director Chris Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the accusations. According to Wray, ten of the 13 people accused in the instances are Chinese officials.
“As these instances show, the Chinese government tried to restrict the freedoms and rights of people living in the United States and to challenge the integrity of the justice system that upholds those freedoms. They failed, according to Garland.
Beijing may believe that our dedication to the law is a weakness, but Wray insisted that they are mistaken. “Our democratic and legal systems provide us tools that China lacks.”
In one of the instances, two Chinese intelligence operatives were charged with trying to disrupt the FBI’s criminal investigation against a Chinese telecommunications business by working with a double agent who provided them with information. Guochun He and Zheng Wang, the two defendants, are still at large. On the basis of bribes paid to the double agent, Guochun He has also been accused of money laundering.
He and Wang reportedly gave instructions to the American law enforcement officer engaged in the conspiracy to take sensitive documents from the Brooklyn office of the US attorney in relation to the criminal prosecution against the multinational telecommunications giant. The undercover agent was given bribes in the amount of $61,000 in bitcoin in return.
Although the corporation is not specifically mentioned in the affidavit supporting the allegations, it does make reference to a press statement the Justice Department released in February 2020. In the same month, the department announced accusations against Huawei, a Chinese firm that is among the top providers of network hardware to the phone and internet industries. The Justice Department said that the telecom behemoth and its affiliates were behind a decades-long plot to steal trade secrets from American tech firms.
The charging papers, which were unveiled on Monday, go into detail about the relationship He and Wang are said to have developed with the unnamed law enforcement official starting in February 2017. During this time, the agent, working for the FBI, allegedly shared “purportedly sensitive information” regarding the Justice Department’s case against the telecom company.
Federal prosecutors claim that the two regularly inquired about the Chinese business starting in January 2019, when accusations were initially brought against the corporation, “in an attempt to obstruct the prosecution and the continuing investigation.”
The U.S. government employee and the two Chinese nationals spoke through text messages and phone conversations, according to the indictment, including a call on February 4, 2019, in which Wang “indicated interest” in learning more about the company’s investigation by the U.S. government.
The double agent wrote to He in August 2021 asking for guidance on what information he wanted American law police to obtain. The alleged response from the Chinese intelligence officer was that he was interested in learning more about the telecommunications firm and that “all about the trade talk, attitude, analysis, potential measures, targets, and offers…are helpful,” adding that “specific cases of sanction aim to China enterprises are also good.”
Then, in the autumn of 2021, the double agent misled He and Wang by claiming that the official was conferring with the group of government attorneys preparing for the Huawei trial. He inquired about if federal prosecutors would “bring forth a plea” in one email and whether there was a witness list to disclose, according to court records.
The indictment also refers to a conversation that took place in October 2021 between the double agent and the Chinese officials, during which the agent provided a single page from what looked to be a “SECRET”-classified internal strategy plan from federal prosecutors. A plot to accuse and detain two Huawei workers who reside in China was outlined in the document. According to court documents, He, one of the defendants, responded that the letter was “just what I am waiting for,” and after that, He gave the undercover agent around $41,000 in bitcoin in exchange for stealing it.
He said that the Chinese telecoms business “didn’t offer me particularly feedback today, but they are certainly interested in it, and my supervisor and they require additional information,” when the agent queried He and Wang about the “SECRET” paper. The corporation, which is thought to be Huawei, “clearly will be interested” in the undercover agent obtaining another section of the strategy plan, he said to the double agent.
He spoke to the double agent until October 20, 2022, and throughout that time they talked about a reward for the task.
In a different instance, New Jersey prosecutors brought charges against four people, including three Chinese intelligence officers, for allegedly making futile attempts to enlist a former member of the federal law enforcement community and a state official in charge of homeland security to work as an agent of China in the United States.
An affiliation with a Chinese academic institution was allegedly used as cover by Wang Lin and three co-defendants between 2008 and at least 2018 to locate, target, and instruct people in the U.S. to act on behalf of China, including attempting to persuade the person to stop a planned protest against China in the U.S. and other allegedly “clandestine” activities, according to charging documents that were unveiled on Monday.
The third example that Garland disclosed included seven people who were accused of acting on behalf of the Chinese government and waging a multi-year effort to compel a resident of the United States to return to China. Only two of the seven accused were detained last week; the other five are still at large.
Garland added, referring to the People’s Republic of China, “The PRC has a history of persecuting political dissidents and government opponents who have sought solace and sanctuary in other nations.”
According to the attorney general, the campaign included intimidation, monitoring, threats, and harassment with the goal of pressuring the person to go back to China. The parties involved reportedly also harassed the victim’s relatives.