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The guilty plea marked a significant development in U.S. efforts to curb foreign interference as China is suspected of running covert police outposts across North America, Europe and other regions with significant Chinese diaspora communities.

While China has dismissed these allegations, claiming the facilities are merely service centers assisting citizens with tasks like renewing driver's licenses, critics and officials argue the operations serve a more sinister purpose.

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Chen Jinping, 60, pleaded guilty on a single count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday.

Prosecutors say Chen and his co-defendant, Lu Jianwang, opened and operated a local branch of China's Ministry of Public Security in Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood starting in early 2022.

According to federal prosecutors, the station offered seemingly mundane services like assisting Chinese citizens in renewing driver's licenses. However, its darker purpose was to surveil and identify pro-democracy activists living in the U.S., aligning with the People's Republic of China's broader agenda of transnational repression.

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