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The Justice Department on Thursday indicted nine people, including Chinese nationals and an American private detective, on charges of being part of a terrorist organization. Chinese Government The covert operation called “Fox Hunt” that forcibly repatriates opponents of the Beijing regime.

Nine people were charged with acting as illegal agents. ChineseConspiracy and illegal pursuit of dissidents and critics of the Beijing regime between 2016 and 2019.

Prosecutors said the men were working at the command of the command. ChineseThe Communist government of ‘s and US residents spied on and harassed, pressured them to return. Chinese. Chinese Fox Hunt teams are made up of undercover agents from the government’s Ministry of Public Security assigned to target dissidents, human rights activists and other political dissidents.

The indictment stated that many of the Fox Hunt targets were US residents and were citizens or permanent residents. Federal enforcement officials had targeted the operation as a threat before Thursday’s indictments were released.

“Fox Hunt is a comprehensive offering. [Chinese President] Xi Jinping will target Chinese citizens he sees as a threat and living outside of China Chinese FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said in a speech last year,

One of the accused was identified as Tu Lan, a prosecutor at the Hanyang People’s Procuratorate near Wuhan. Chinese.

Court documents allege that Mr. Tu traveled to the United States and led the harassment campaign and ordered another defendant to destroy evidence in the FBI investigation.

“Law enforcement officers around the world are following a code of professional conduct,” said Mark Lesko, Acting Attorney General of the Department of Homeland Security in the Justice Department. “It is an insult to the highest level of justice for a prosecutor and police officer to not only direct and participate in a criminal plot on U.S. soil, but then try to cover it up.”

Some of those named in the indictment are Chinese police, including Hu Ji, who works for the Wuhan Public Security Bureau, and two other Chinese, whose names have not been released but who work for the Wuhan prosecutor’s office. The defendants also commissioned a New Jersey-based private investigator, identified in court documents as Michael McMahon, for the operations. Mr McMahon was among those charged. Another unidentified private detective was also employed by Chinese agents.

According to the indictment, the operations have been ongoing since 2016 and target only a few individuals identified as John Doe. Chinese. One operation involved the use of “psychological coercion” by bringing the elderly father of a New Jersey man to the United States and threatening him in front of his son.

Chinese authorities also jailed the Fox Hunt target’s sister. Chinese and forced him to send a slide show to his brother, asking him to return. Chinese.

According to the Justice Department indictment, China pressured the International Criminal Police Organization or Interpol to issue a “red notice” against the regime opponent. The operation failed, but federal officials reported the operation and later questioned one of the Chinese agents involved in the conspiracy.

Government officials announced Chinese‘ Fox Hunt operators operate in a similar fashion to terrorists, using threats and incarceration of family members to force targets to return, in addition to confiscating assets. Mr Wray said in one case, Chinese agents told him to return to a target. Chinese or take your own life.

“These people are essentially dealing with rogue law enforcement … they suppress opposition and try to put pressure on citizens,” he said last year.

The federal grand jury indictment was filed in New York and supersedes an earlier indictment. The previous indictment in May included two charges and six defendants.

The six-count indictment does not reveal how prosecutors learned details about the Fox Hunt operations. However, the names of two collaborators were not mentioned in the indictment, which is an indication that they may have acted as informants. An FBI complaint in the case stated that one of the private detectives hired by the Chinese was “a secret human resource for the FBI.”

In addition to Mr. Tu, Mr. Hu, and Mr. McMahon, other accused persons include Li Minjun, a medical doctor working at a hospital in Hubei province; Zhu Feng, Zheng Congying, and Zhu Yong, who are Chinese nationals; and Zhai Yongqiang, a permanent resident of the United States, a Chinese citizen living in California.

Defendant Zhu Yong’s lawyer, Kevin K. Tung, said: “Based on the discovery we have received so far and the facts we know, we have good grounds to believe that our client Yong Zhu is innocent.”

Lawyers for the other defendants either did not respond to e-mails asking for comment or could not be reached for comment.

Acting US Attorney Jacquelyn M. Kasulis said that “unregistered, roaming agents of a foreign power are not allowed to spy on US residents on American soil and their illegal conduct will be met with the full force of US law.”

Alan E. Kohler, Deputy Director of FBI Counterintelligence, said: Chinese Government He has sent agents to America to harass, spy on and force their return to US residents. Chinese. These actions are not democratic, but authoritarian and against the rule of law.”