The Department of Justice on Monday announced that it had charged more than 40 individuals, many of whom are members of the Chinese national police, in connection with transnational repression schemes to stifle the activities of Chinese citizens abroad.
Two criminal complaints included charges against 44 defendants, 40 of whom are part of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) while another two are officials in the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). The defendants allegedly partook in efforts to target Chinese individuals with political viewpoints of which the communist regime does not approve.
The first complaint targets 34 MPS officials, detailing their alleged use of fake digital personas to harass Chinese opponents of the communist regime. The operators of these fake accounts also made videos and wrote articles critical of U.S. policy on China and of Chinese dissidents.
The second complaint charges 10 individuals, six of whom are MPS officials. Two more are the CAC officials while the third is a China-based employee of a U.S. telecommunications company and the tenth is believed to reside in Indonesia. They face charges of conspiracy to commit interstate harassment and unlawful conspiracy to transfer means of identification.
Julien Jin, the China-based employee, first faced charges in 2020 as part of alleged scheme to disrupt company members commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre during which Chinese military personnel slaughtered peaceful demonstrators seeking democratic reforms in the country.
The updated complaint alleges that he and his co-conspirators worked to disrupt the activities of a Chinese dissident operating out of New York City by disrupting video chat meetings.
News of the charges comes the same day that the DOJ announced charges against individuals suspected of operating a clandestine police station in New York City on behalf of the Chinese National Police.
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