A grand jury has indicted five people with ‘stalking, harassing, and spying’ on behalf of China
A US grand jury has indicted five individuals in relation to an alleged plot to silence critics about the Chinese government.
Three of the defendants – Fan “Frank” Liu, Qiang “Jason” Sun and Matthew Ziburis – perpetrated a campaign to “spy on, harass and discredit”According to US authorities, dissidents in America were trying to silence criticisms of Beijing. Craig Miller, a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), employee and Derrick Taylor were accused of lying and destroying evidence to FBI agents when confronted by FBI investigators about the dissemination of information from restricted federal databases that Liu or Sun used.
Miller, a DHS employee for 15 years, currently serves as a Minneapolis deportation officer. Taylor, who retired from the DHS, is now a private detective in Irvine. Sun and Liu allegedly plotted to bribe federal officials to get tax returns for anti-China activists.
“We will defend the rights of people in the United States to engage in free speech and political expression, including views the PRC (People’s Republic of China) government wants to silence,”Matthew Olsen was the US assistant attorney general for national safety and security. “As charged, these individuals aided agents of a foreign government in seeking to suppress dissenting voices who have taken refuge here. The defendants include two sworn law enforcement officers who choose to forsake their oaths and violate the law.”
California’s artist was one of the “dissidents”The defendants allegedly target the victim. Posing as a dealer interested in buying his artwork, Ziburis secretly installed surveillance cameras and GPS devices at the artist’s studio and in his car, prosecutors said. The defendants allegedly made plans to destroy the dissident’s artwork.
According to prosecutors, Taylor was requested to give confidential information about multiple Chinese dissidents living in the US. This included passport information, photos and immigration records. Taylor is alleged to have given Miller and two DHS associates the responsibility of getting these records.
Last March, the US Department of Justice first announced allegations that Liu, Ziburis and three other alleged conspirators were harassing and spying on anti-Beijing critics on behalf of China’s secret police.
After Christopher Wray (US FBI Director) and Ken McCallum, UK MI5 chief gave presentations in London alleging China wanted to steal Western technology at a large scale, the grand jury indictments were made. “bigger than that of every other country combined.”
Zhao Lijian (Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson) replied on Thursday that Wray “has been playing up the so-called China threat to smear and attack China.”He said that UK security needs to be “stop creating imagined enemies.”
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