Washington – Federal prosecutors in New York filed criminal charges against a Chinese resident of the US, accusing him of working secretly for China’s intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security, and spying on pro-democracy activist groups, according to a criminal complaint obtained by CBS News.
Yuanjun Tang once protested against the Chinese Communist Party during The 1989 Tiananmen Square Demonstrationcourt documents said, and fled to Taiwan and the US But prosecutors alleged decades later, he agreed to work for China’s intelligence agency in a bid to see his family living in mainland China.
Investigators ​​​​​​​​​said Tang first sought opportunities to visit his family in 2018 and was eventually introduced to an unnamed intelligence official. The two allegedly began communicating and Chinese intelligence agents pushed Tang to gather “information about PRC Dissidents, pro-democracy events, and the political asylum process,” according to court documents.
Chinese intelligence officers also paid members of the Tang family after the pair entered into an alleged partnership, prosecutors said.
Tang is accused of passing on information about an event planned in New York to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre in 2021 and a year later, he is accused of passing on information to Chinese intelligence officials about the campaign and fundraising team of an unnamed Congressional candidate. The candidate is also a Chinese dissident and human rights activist.
Court records allege Tang also helped the agent monitor group chats used by Chinese dissidents living in the U.S. wrote the investigator. .
Tang was charged with three counts, including acting as an agent of a foreign government and making false statements to investigators.
The FBI interviewed Tang in July 2023 and extracted data from five phones, online accounts used by Chinese intelligence officials, and Tang’s computer. They recovered text and audio messages Tang allegedly exchanged with Chinese intelligence officials, photos and videos of pro-democracy events, images of conversations between dissidents, and “a Chinese copy of the FBI’s Transnational Repressive Threats Intimidation Guide.”
In one of the messages – sent on June 3, 2023 – a Chinese intelligence official allegedly asked Tang to “work hard”.
“Work harder this month. You have to send through some new items with all the priorities,” the message directed, court documents revealed.
According to investigators, Tang traveled to mainland China or Macau at least three times between 2019 and 2023 to allegedly meet with Chinese intelligence officials. During the 2022 meeting, prosecutors said the agent installed a “bug” on one of Tang’s cell phones that “caused photos, images, or voice memos made or captured on the Compromised Phone to be sent immediately” to officers.
Prosecutors said Tang had not notified the US federal government of his work for China’s intelligence agency as required by law. He was arrested on Wednesday.
The Justice Department has indicted many people in connection with transnational repression cases in recent years.
Dissident communities and pro-democracy activists living in the US have long been targeted by China’s intelligence agencies, which used activists’ families still living on the mainland as a form of coercion as prosecutors alleged happened in the Tang case.
Earlier this month, a jury in New York convicted a dissident Chinese citizen who led a pro-democracy group of secretly working with Chinese intelligence officials to monitor dissidents.
And last year, the FBI arrested two defendants accused of setting up and operating an illegal Chinese police station in the heart of New York City to influence and intimidate dissidents critical of the Chinese government in the US.
A lawyer for Tang was not immediately identified.
