Security agencies arrested two New Yorkers who allegedly set up one Chinese “secret police department” in Manhattan’s Chinatown, the Brooklyn federal prosecutor’s office said.

Liu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, are charged with conspiring to act as agents of the Chinese government without informing US authorities, as well as obstruction of justice.

They are expected to appear before a federal judge in Brooklyn in the coming days.

“This prosecution exposes her flagrant violation of national sovereignty of our nation by the Chinese government, with the establishment of a secret police station in the heart of New York,” Federal Attorney Brian Peace said in a statement.

According to prosecutors, in 2018 Lu attempted to persuade a person considered a fugitive in China to return to his home country. This person was allegedly harassed and threatened. In 2022, the Chinese government asked Lu to help locate a person who lived in California and was believed to be a pro-democracy activist.

The two defendants admitted to the FBI that they deleted their communications with a Chinese government official after learning they were the target of an investigation.

In the context of another, separate investigation, 34 officials were prosecuted of China’s Ministry of Internal Security” for participating in a “core” that harassed Chinese activists and dissidents outside the country “primarily here in New York,” Pease said at a news conference he gave. This cell had an online “troll farm” and created thousands of fake profiles which it used to harass and threaten dissidents and activists. All the suspects “reside in China,” he clarified.

In a third investigation, ten suspects, including eight Chinese government officials and a former US telecommunications company executive who worked in China, are accused of online harassment and dissident dissidents. In earlier reports, US media reported that the company one of the suspects worked for was Zoom.