Two Chinese Agents Plead Guilty
According to a press release by the U.S. Department of Justice, two Chinese nationals pleaded guilty to acting as CCP agents in an operation targeting Shen Yun.
“John Chen, 71, of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Los Angeles, California, and Lin Feng, 44, a PRC citizen and resident of Los Angeles, California,” the press release stated,” pleaded guilty to acting as unregistered agents of the PRC and bribing an IRS agent in connection with a plot to target U.S.-based practitioners of Falun Gong.”
According to court documents, the two men worked in the U.S. following directions from the CCP, including a specific official identified by the court only as PRC Official-1, to repress Falun Gong practitioners in America. Specifically, one of their targets was Shen Yun Performing Arts. According to the DOJ:
“As part of the PRC’s campaign against the Falun Gong, Chen and Feng engaged in a PRC government-directed scheme to manipulate the IRS’s Whistleblower Program in an effort to strip the tax-exempt status of an entity run and maintained by Falun Gong practitioners (Entity-1).”
“Entity-1” turned out (per a following DOJ press release November 19 about their sentencing) to be Shen Yun Performing Arts.
The two agents tried to bribe an undercover agent posing as an IRS officer to try to strip Shen Yun of its nonprofit tax-exempt status.
At the time of the initial arrest, in May 2023, the U.S. Attorney on the case, Damian Williams said: “Efforts to manipulate and use the arms of the U.S. Government to carry out the PRC Government’s autocratic aims are as shocking as they are insidious. My Office will work vigorously to protect against malign foreign influences.”
The case garnered high-profile attention, and yet this operation may only be the tip of the iceberg.
“The FBI will not tolerate CCP repression – its efforts to threaten, harass, and intimidate people – here in the United States,” said FBI Director Christopher A. Wray. “We will continue to confront the Chinese government’s efforts to violate our laws and repress the rights and freedoms of people in our country.”