Five people accused of working in U.S. for Chinese secret police

Washington — Five individuals have been charged with working in the U.S. on behalf of a state-sponsored Chinese secret police agency to silence dissent and harass outspoken Chinese nationals living in the U.S., the Justice Department announced Wednesday. 

Prosecutors unsealed three separate criminal complaints in federal court alleging the defendants stalked, harassed, and spied on Chinese nationals living in New York and throughout the U.S. The individuals, allegedly acting on orders from the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS), engaged in various schemes, ranging from attempting to blackmail a congressional candidate with false claims of prostitution to trying to bribe an Internal Revenue Service employee to obtain one victim's tax returns. At least one victim was even jailed in Hong Kong as a result of one of the criminal schemes. 

Qiming Lin is accused of trying to intimidate a dissident who planned to run for Congress. The unnamed victim is a former student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests who later moved to the U.S., joined the military and became a naturalized citizen.