UMVA has learned that a Bronx‑born New Yorker was sentenced on Wednesday for running a covert Chinese government police outpost hidden in the heart of Manhattan.
Lu Jianwang, 64, known to neighbors as “Harry Lu,” was found guilty on two counts of operating an overseas police station for China’s Ministry of Public Security and on obstruction of justice after shredding critical evidence.
The clandestine hub, described by investigators as the first known foreign police station on U.S. soil, occupied a modest office in Lower Manhattan where a stark blue banner proclaimed, “Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station, New York, USA.”
U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. declared the verdict a decisive blow to a foreign power daring to infringe on American sovereignty, emphasizing the government’s commitment to protect those fleeing repression.
FBI New York field director James Barnacle Jr. warned that the ruling sends a thunderous message to any covert operatives seeking refuge behind U.S. borders.
According to information obtained by UMVA, the Manhattan outpost formed part of a sweeping Chinese campaign to surveil, intimidate, and silence dissidents abroad, extending its reach into the United States.
Federal agents raided the office in October 2022, seizing Lu’s and co‑defendant Chen Jinping’s phones and uncovering a trail of deleted WeChat messages that linked the pair to a Chinese handler.
During the investigation, Lu admitted to FBI interrogators that he had founded the station, used encrypted WeChat to relay intelligence, and deliberately erased the digital footprints.
Outside the courtroom, Lu’s lawyer painted the operation as a benign community center where Chinese residents could renew driver’s licenses and gather socially, insisting it was “not espionage, not spying, not intelligence gathering.”
The conviction shatters the illusion of hidden foreign police stations operating unchecked in America, reminding the nation that even the most secretive foreign plots can be exposed and dismantled.
