A former New York City police sergeant charged with acting as an illegal Chinese agent for allegedly intimidating a US-based fugitive from China went on trial on Wednesday and argued he did not know that the country’s government was behind a private surveillance job he took.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said Michael McMahon pressured a New Jersey resident, Xu Jin, to return to China to face bribery and embezzlement charges, one example of a global repatriation campaign by Chinese law enforcement known as “Operation Fox Hunt.”
The case is the first of several involving alleged Fox Hunt schemes to reach trial in the US, as officials crack down on what they term “transnational repression” on dissidents and fugitives by adversaries including China.
Photo: AFP
McMahon is on trial alongside Zhu Yong, who prosecutors said hired him for the job in 2016, and Zheng Congying, who is accused of posting a note to Xu’s door in 2018 reading: “If you are willing to go back to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be all right.”
All three men have pleaded not guilty to charges of acting as illegal Chinese agents without notifying the US Attorney General, as required by law, and interstate stalking.
Beijing has dismissed the case as a smear of its efforts to pursue criminal suspects overseas.
In opening statements before a federal jury, McMahon’s lawyer, Lawrence Lustberg, said his client was told he was working for a Chinese construction company trying to recover assets and alerted local law enforcement to his activities.
“If he’s secretly acting on behalf of the Chinese government, is he going to call the cops and tell them?” Lustberg said. “He had no idea, none ... that he was working for China.”
Irisa Chen, a prosecutor, said McMahon searched the target’s name on the Internet and even met a Chinese official during the course of his work, suggesting he saw through the “vague” cover story.
“McMahon knew this was not the true reason,” Chen said in her opening statement. “He looked the other way.”
Lawyers for Zhu and Zheng, both Chinese citizens and New York City residents, also said their clients did not know they were working for China’s government.
Xu had directed the municipal development division of Wuhan, China, before being charged with taking millions of dollars in bribes, according to a 2021 ProPublica investigation.
In her opening statement, Chen did not refer to Xu by name, referring to him only as a former Chinese government official who came to the US in 2010 after falling out of favor with the ruling Chinese Communist Party. China’s government then put out an international notice for his arrest, Chen said.
Xu was identified by name by the first witness, his sister-in-law Liu Yan.
She testified that at two separate points in 2016, individuals she did not know came to her Short Hills, New Jersey, home and told her that Xu should go back to China.
“I felt very scared,” she said.
Then, in early 2017, Xu’s elderly father, who lived in China and did not know her US address, showed up unannounced at Liu’s home and told her that he had a “task” to persuade Xu to go back to China.
Chen said in her opening statement Xu’s father was being used as “bait.”
“I cannot believe the law enforcement of China’s government was using an elderly man to meet their goal,” Liu said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS