A Federal Jury Just Convicted a Bronx Man of Running a Secret CCP Police Station in Manhattan.
First Such Station Anywhere in the United States.
On May 13, 2026, a federal jury in Brooklyn (Eastern District of New York) found Lu Jianwang, 64, a Bronx resident and naturalized U.S. citizen, guilty on two federal counts: acting as an agent of the People’s Republic of China Ministry of Public Security (MPS) without prior notification, under 18 U.S.C. § 951; and obstruction of justice under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(1) for deleting text messages prosecutors said contained direct orders from his Beijing handler. The jury acquitted Lu on a separate conspiracy count.
The substance of the case: starting in January 2022, Lu and his co-defendant Chen Jinping — also a U.S. citizen, who pleaded guilty in December 2024 — established and operated what federal prosecutors call the first known overseas Chinese police station inside the United States. It was a one-room office at 107 East Broadway in Manhattan’s Chinatown. A blue banner reading “Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station, New York, USA” was recovered from the location.
What Beijing actually used the station to do, per the indictment and the trial record: locate and harass Chinese dissidents who had fled the PRC and resettled in the United States. Lu’s MPS handler specifically tasked him with finding a named pro-democracy advocate. When the FBI moved in 2022, Lu deleted the text-message chain in which his handler gave the orders — the obstruction count. Maximum statutory exposure at sentencing: 30 years total (10 on § 951; 20 on § 1512(c)(1)).
- GUILTYLu Jianwang, 64, Bronx — § 951 + § 1512(c)(1)Acting as unregistered agent of the PRC Ministry of Public Security + obstruction of justice for deleted handler-chat texts. Acquitted of separate conspiracy count. EDNY jury verdict May 13, 2026.
- 30 yrsMaximum statutory exposure at sentencing10 years on § 951 (unregistered foreign agent) + 20 years on § 1512(c)(1) (obstruction). Sentencing date pending; guidelines will set the realistic range below the statutory max.
- 107 E. B'wayThe address — Manhattan ChinatownA one-room office. A blue banner reading 'Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station, New York, USA' was recovered there. The station opened January 2022 and was shuttered by the FBI in late 2022.
- FIRSTKnown overseas Chinese police station in the U.S.Per the DOJ's official press release. Safeguard Defenders' broader 2022 report identified roughly 100 such stations operating in 53 countries; the NYC station is the first U.S. case to reach a jury verdict.
- Co-defendantChen Jinping pleaded guilty Dec 2024Conspiracy to act as a foreign agent. Awaiting sentencing. His plea was a major evidentiary contribution to the Lu trial.
- MPSMinistry of Public Security, People's Republic of ChinaThe Beijing security agency that issued the orders. The trial record establishes the chain from Beijing handler → text-message instruction → Lu's New York actions, then Lu's deletion of the chain.
The core function: intelligence collection on PRC-origin individuals living in the New York metropolitan area. Specifically: locating dissidents, building biographical files on persons of interest to MPS, and applying pressure (direct and through family in China) to compel return or silence.
The named target on the trial record: a pro-democracy advocate who had fled China and resettled in the United States. Lu’s MPS handler tasked him with finding this individual. The trial record does not name the target in open exhibits; the DOJ press release describes them as “a U.S.-based pro-democracy activist of Chinese national origin.”
The everyday cover: Lu was a recognized community leader in Manhattan’s Chinatown. The station ran in tandem with what looked like a benign overseas-Chinese-community-services office, providing notarization, driver’s-license assistance, and Chinese-government paperwork to U.S. residents of Chinese origin. The intelligence work ran underneath that cover.
The shutdown: the FBI surveilled the office in 2022 and executed a search. Federal arrest of Lu and Chen followed in April 2023. The blue Fuzhou-Police-Overseas-Service-Station banner was photographed in place by the FBI and entered as a trial exhibit.
The post-arrest obstruction: during the FBI’s questioning, Lu was advised of his rights and was specifically warned not to destroy evidence. Lu thereafter deleted the WeChat thread with his MPS handler. The deletion is the basis of the § 1512(c)(1) count on which he was convicted alongside the foreign-agent count.
“Lu Jianwang did the bidding of the People's Republic of China inside the United States, and when caught, he deleted the texts. The jury saw through it. This conviction is a warning to every foreign-power agent operating inside our country: we will find you and we will prosecute you.”
U.S. Attorney's Office, EDNY · post-verdict statement · May 13, 2026
Safeguard Defenders — the underlying inventory. The Madrid-based NGO Safeguard Defenders, in its 2022 report “110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild,” documented roughly 100 overseas police stations operating in 53 countries on behalf of the Chinese MPS. The New York station is the first to reach a U.S. jury verdict. Stations have also been documented in London, Toronto, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Stockholm, Frankfurt, Dublin, and at least a dozen other cities.
The legal precedent this conviction sets. Per pre-trial analysis from Vision Times and other outlets, U.S. v. Luis being watched as a global precedent because it tests whether 18 U.S.C. § 951 — the foreign-agents-without-notification statute — can be used to prosecute community-cover MPS operations the same way it has historically been used against more conventional state-sponsored intelligence officers. The jury said yes.
The U.S.-citizen dimension. Both Lu and Chen are U.S. citizens. The MPS recruitment model relies heavily on diaspora actors who hold U.S. citizenship and operate inside Chinatown community institutions. The case demonstrates that U.S. citizenship is not a shield against § 951 prosecution where the actor is documented to be operating as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal.
The Chinatown-community-fracture dimension. Per Gothamist and DocumentedNY, the Manhattan Chinatown community is itself split on the verdict. Some community leaders — the people who knew Lu socially as a long-time community-services figure — rallied behind him during the trial. Others, particularly U.S.-resident pro-democracy advocates of PRC origin, framed the verdict as long-overdue federal protection against the MPS’s overseas-operations reach.
The PRC government’s response. Beijing has denied that MPS overseas service stations conduct intelligence operations and characterizes them as benign community-services offices. The PRC Embassy in Washington has not specifically commented on the Lu verdict but referred reporters to its prior general statements on the topic.
The FBI’s standing posture: per public Director Christopher Wray (2023) and Director Kash Patel (2025-26) statements, the FBI runs hundreds of open counter-intelligence investigations against PRC state actors operating inside the United States, of which the Lu/Chen case is one. The Bureau has opened a new PRC counter-intelligence investigation every ~12 hours, on average, since 2022, per Wray’s 2023 House Intelligence testimony.
The DOJ’s tools: 18 U.S.C. § 951 (unregistered foreign agent — 10-year statutory max); FARA (22 U.S.C. § 611 et seq.), the Foreign Agents Registration Act, more typically used for non-clandestine lobbying; 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(1) obstruction; 18 U.S.C. § 1546 visa fraud where applicable; 18 U.S.C. § 1832 theft of trade secrets in industrial-targeting cases.
The Treasury / OFAC tools: designations of specific Chinese MPS officials and front companies under E.O. 13694 (significant malicious cyber-enabled activities) and E.O. 13818 (Global Magnitsky human-rights authority). The MPS has been the target of multiple Treasury designation packages since 2020.
The structural challenge: the MPS recruits inside Chinese-American community institutions that the FBI cannot blanket-surveil for First Amendment reasons. The Bureau’s posture relies on tips from inside the community and from targeted dissidents themselves; the FBI Counterintelligence Division has a dedicated PRC transnational-repression unit established 2021-2022 specifically for this caseload.
What the Lu verdict changes: it lowers the litigation risk for the next § 951 prosecution against a community-cover MPS operative. Defense counsel can no longer plausibly argue to a jury that an MPS service-station front is merely a benign community center. The trial record — including the deleted text-message chain — is now public precedent.
JUST IN: Lu Jianwang convicted by a federal jury for operating an unregistered police station in Manhattan's Chinatown on behalf of the People's Republic of China Ministry of Public Security.
The jury also convicted Lu of obstruction of justice for destroying evidence of his Beijing handler's orders. This is what transnational repression looks like — and this is what we do about it.
The verdict landed May 13, 2026. One day later, President Trump was in Beijing announcing a 200-Boeing-737-MAX commitment from China, an extension of the October 2025 trade truce, and Chinese purchase commitments for U.S. soybeans, oil, and LNG. (See the Boeing deal coverage and the Asia trade-deals week roundup.)
The two tracks do not contradict each other. The Trump administration’s posture on PRC trade and PRC counter-intelligence has been “simultaneously, both fronts.” The Beijing summit is the commercial track. The EDNY conviction is the counter-intelligence track. The Treasury OFAC actions are the financial-sanctions track. The DOJ DOJ-USAO actions on intellectual-property theft are the corporate-espionage track. The administration is running all four lanes in parallel and treating them as separable.
The strategic-competition framing. Per the May 2026 CSIS analysis of the Beijing summit, this kind of compartmentalization is the U.S. negotiating posture for the U.S.-China relationship: trade can deal; intelligence cannot. The same week Xi got 200 Boeing jets, a U.S. court convicted his MPS’s Manhattan operative.
The honest read for U.S. citizens: the trade deal is real and is good for U.S. workers in the affected industries. The MPS station is real and is bad for U.S. residents of PRC origin who are exercising First Amendment rights inside this country. Holding both facts at once is the policy posture. Pretending only one is true is what bad analysis looks like.
A Bronx man, U.S. citizen, was just convicted by a federal jury for running the first known overseas Chinese police station inside the United States. Address: 107 East Broadway. Banner: “Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station.” Beijing handler. Tasking: locate U.S.-resident dissidents. Obstruction: deleted texts. Maximum: 30 years. The next 99 MPS stations are still out there in 53 countries. This conviction is the U.S. precedent. One day later, China bought 200 Boeing jets. Both facts are true.