While FBI officials were busy targeting President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the Chinese government successfully created a government police station in the U.S.

Federal prosecutors confirmed that two New York residents have been arrested for allegedly operating the Chinese government police station.

They are charged with conspiring to act as agents of China’s government. They have been identified as Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping.

U.S. Attorney Breon Peace in New York said China “has repeatedly and flagrantly violated our nation’s sovereignty, including by opening and operating a police station in the middle of New York City.”

“Two miles from our office just across the Brooklyn Bridge, this nondescript office building in the heart of bustling Chinatown in Lower Manhattan has a dark secret,” Peace said. Here’s a photo of the building in NY where the prison was located:

“Until several months ago, an entire floor of this building hosted an undeclared police station of the Chinese National Police,” Peace said. “Now, just imagine the NYPD opening an undeclared secret police station in Beijing. It would be unthinkable.”

“Here’s what we know happened inside the secret police station in Lower Manhattan. At the very least, the station was providing some government services, like helping Chinese citizens renew their Chinese driver’s licenses,” Peace continued.

“But to do even that, the law requires that individuals like the defendants who act as agents of a foreign government give prior notice to the attorney general before setting up shop in New York City. That didn’t happen.”

“More troubling, though, is the fact that the secret police station appears to have had a more sinister use on at least one occasion,” Peace added. “An official with the Chinese National Police directed one of the defendants — a U.S. citizen who worked at the secret police station — to help locate a pro-democracy activist of Chinese descent living in California. In other words, the Chinese national police appear to have been using the station to track a U.S. resident on U.S. soil.”

“The two defendants whose arrests we’re announcing today destroyed evidence of their communications with the Chinese national police when they learned of the FBI’s investigation,” Peace said. “These two defendants knew they had something to hide, and they obstructed justice in an attempt to prevent the FBI from learning the full extent of what they were up to.”

More on this story via Fox News:

Peace said his office and the FBI’s New York Field Office are the “first law enforcement partners in the world to make arrests in connection with the Chinese government’s overseas police stations.”

Both defendants in the case were arrested at their homes in New York City this morning, he said.

Michael Driscoll, Assistant Director-in-Charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office, said “Not only was the police station set up on the order of MPS officials, but members of the Chinese consulate in New York even paid a visit to it after it opened.”

Peace said “before helping to open the police station in early 2022, Lu Jianwang had a longstanding relationship of trust with [Chinese] law enforcement, including the MPS.”

“In 2018, Lu was enlisted in efforts to cause a purported Chinese fugitive to return to China,” Peace continued. “The victim of that effort reported that he was repeatedly harassed to return to China. That victim received threats of violence against his family in the United States and MPS officers harassed a victim’s family in China.”

(Source)