The FBI is warning law-enforcement agencies to beware of cooperating with a Chinese government campaign to coerce U.S. residents to return to China to face criminal charges, according to a counterintelligence bulletin obtained by Yahoo News.
The bulletin comes after eight people, including a former New York Police Department officer, were indicted on charges of acting as illegal agents for Beijing.
“State and local public safety personnel should be aware that Chinese Government officials, such as diplomats and officials with China’s primary law enforcement agency, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), may seek assistance to obtain sensitive US law enforcement or non-public personally identifiable information on individuals of interest,” which is marked for official use only and was distributed to law enforcement agencies around the country.
The warning concerns China’s long-standing policy of reaching beyond its borders to target people it accuses of financial crimes, even if they are permanently living abroad. The repatriations, often coerced by blackmail or threats, are part of Beijing’s anti-corruption campaign called Fox Hunt.
There has been an increasing number of allegations that China has coerced, even kidnapped, its citizens living abroad, and that it targets political dissidents as well as those accused of financial crimes.
Last month, the Justice Department announced charges against eight people for acting as illegal agents of the government in Beijing in connection with their attempt to surveil and coerce U.S. residents to return to China.
In one case, according to the FBI, a U.S. resident targeted by the Chinese government was given the option of returning to China or committing suicide. In another, a note was left for a victim: “If you are willing to go back to mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be all right. That’s the end of this matter!”
“The Chinese government’s brazen attempts to surveil, threaten, and harass our own citizens and lawful permanent residents, while on American soil, are part of China’s diverse campaign of theft and malign influence in our country and around the world,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement following the arrests. “The FBI will use all of its tools to investigate and defeat these outrageous actions by the Chinese government, which are an affront to America’s ideals of freedom, human rights, and the rule of law.”
