Month: April 2023

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York,  Michael J. Driscoll, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), and Robert Gazzola, the Commissioner of the New Rochelle Police Department (“NRPD”), announced that JAYLEEN MOTA was arrested on April 16, 2023, and charged via a criminal Complaint filed in White Plains federal court with making threatening interstate communications, in which MOTA threatened to shoot up a popular nationwide chain restaurant and sports bar located on LeCount Place in New Rochelle on Saturday night.  MOTA will be presented in White Plains federal court later today before United States Magistrate Judge Andrew E. Krause.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Actual or threatened gun violence cannot be tolerated.  Simply put, those who place the public in fear by engaging in or threatening the use of violence will be held accountable.  This Office commends the swift action of the New Rochelle Police Department and the FBI in quickly tracking down this threat.”

FBI Assistant Director in Charge Michael J. Driscoll said: “As alleged, Ms. Mota sent a series of text messages in which she threatened to commit a mass shooting at a crowded New Rochelle restaurant.  Communicating threats like those we allege she made can waste valuable law enforcement resources and cause unnecessary alarm in our communities.  Today’s charges should serve as a reminder for all that the FBI takes these types of threats seriously, and there will be consequences for those who make them.”

NRPD Commissioner Robert Gazzola said: “I want to commend the New Rochelle Police detectives, members of the Westchester County Department of Public Safety’s Real Time Crime Center, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.  They worked quickly and diligently to identify and arrest the individual who allegedly made threats of mass violence directed at a local New Rochelle restaurant.  It is a testament to the professional cooperation that exists in law enforcement today.  The New Rochelle Police Department does not tolerate such acts and will make every effort to identify and arrest anyone making such threats.”

As alleged in the Complaint filed today:[1]

On April 15, 2023, the NRPD received a call from an individual (“Caller-1”) who had received an initial text message from an unknown person, later identified as MOTA, threatening to “shoot[] up” a popular nationwide chain restaurant and sports bar located on LeCount Place in New Rochelle (the “Victim Restaurant”).  The text message further stated that there would be a “massacre” and “lots of people are going down.”  A subsequent text message stated that “[t]odays a busy night because of the game DON’T TAKE ME AS A JOKE lots of people will die DON’T CALL THE STORE AND RUIN MY PLANS I’m gonna make the news.”

That same day, the NRPD received a call from a second individual (“Caller-2”) who had received an identical text message from an unknown person threatening to “shooting[] up” the Victim Restaurant and commit a “massacre,” stating, “lots of people are going down.”

The NRPD took the phone number from which the text-message threats were sent and traced the number back to MOTA.  On the evening of April 15, 2023, pursuant to a search warrant, the FBI and New Rochelle Police searched MOTA’s apartment and found both MOTA and the cellphone from which MOTA sent the threats.  After informing MOTA of her Miranda rights, she consented to being interviewed and admitted that she had sent text messages threatening to shoot up the Victim Restaurant to five individuals.

*                *                *

MOTA, 21, of the Bronx, New York, is charged with making threatening interstate communications, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.  

The maximum potential penalty is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant would be determined by the judge.

Mr. Williams praised the outstanding investigative efforts of the NRPD and the FBI’s Westchester Safe Streets Task Force, which consists of investigators and analysts from the FBI and other New York state and local agencies.

The case is being handled by the Office’s White Plains Division.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Ly is in charge of the prosecution.

The charges contained in the Complaint are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Delivered

Thank you very much, Mr. Attorney General. 

It is just so good to have the Prosecutor General here with us at the Justice Department, particularly because this week he and I both will be appearing separately before committees of Congress to speak about Ukraine, to speak about our collective response to Russian atrocities committed over the last year. 

And as the Attorney General noted, our resolve at the Justice Department has never been stronger in this work. We are dedicating more resources to ensuring accountability and to combating those that facilitate the Russian war machine. 

Those new resources include prosecutors working with international partners on investigating war crimes and other atrocities, and the crime of aggression. And those resources include continued efforts to freeze and seize any Russian assets that we can under the authorities that we have.

I’ll be up before Congress, as I said, on Wednesday to thank them for the tools that they have already given us to hold Russia accountable, and I’ll also discuss what else we can do—and what new tools we might need—to ensure accountability and our ability to respond to Russian aggression and to ensure justice for Ukraine.

Mr. Prosecutor General.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Two criminal complaints filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York were unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging 44 defendants with various crimes related to efforts by the national police of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) – to harass Chinese nationals residing in the New York metropolitan area and elsewhere in the United States. The defendants, including 40 MPS officers and two officials in the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), allegedly perpetrated transnational repression schemes targeting U.S. residents whose political views and actions are disfavored by the PRC government, such as advocating for democracy in the PRC.

In the two schemes, the defendants created and used fake social media accounts to harass and intimidate PRC dissidents residing abroad and sought to suppress the dissidents’ free speech on the platform of a U.S. telecommunications company (Company-1). The defendants charged in these schemes are believed to reside in the PRC or elsewhere in Asia and remain at large.

“These cases demonstrate the lengths the PRC government will go to silence and harass U.S. persons who exercise their fundamental rights to speak out against PRC oppression, including by unlawfully exploiting a U.S.-based technology company,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “These actions violate our laws and are an affront to our democratic values and basic human rights.”

“China’s Ministry of Public Security used operatives to target people of Chinese descent who had the courage to speak out against the Chinese Communist Party – in one case by covertly spreading propaganda to undermine confidence in our democratic processes and, in another, by suppressing U.S. video conferencing users’ free speech,” said Acting Assistant Director Kurt Ronnow of the FBI Counterintelligence Division. “We aren’t going to tolerate CCP repression – its efforts to threaten, harass, and intimidate people – here in the United States. The FBI will continue to confront the Chinese government’s efforts to violate our laws and repress the rights and freedoms of people in our country.”

Disclosure: U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York is recused from and has not participated in the case captioned United States v. Julien Jin et al., 20-mj-1103.

United States v. Yunpeng Bai, et al.

The two-count complaint charges 34 MPS officers with conspiracy to transmit interstate threats and conspiracy to commit interstate harassment. All the defendants are believed to reside in the PRC, and they remain at large.

As alleged, the officers worked with Beijing’s MPS bureau and are or were assigned to an elite task force called the “912 Special Project Working Group” (the Group). The purpose of the Group is to target Chinese dissidents located throughout the world, including in the United States.

“As alleged, the PRC government deploys its national police and the 912 Special Project Working Group not as an instrument to uphold the law and protect public safety, but rather as a troll farm that attacks persons in our country for exercising free speech in a manner that the PRC government finds disagreeable, and also spreads propaganda whose sole purpose is to sow divisions within the United States,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York. “I commend the investigative team for comprehensively revealing the insidiousness of a state-directed criminal scheme directed at residents of the United States.”

The complaint alleges how members of the Group created thousands of fake online personas on social media sites, including Twitter, to target Chinese dissidents through online harassment and threats. These online personas also disseminated official PRC government propaganda and narratives to counter the pro-democracy speech of the Chinese dissidents. As alleged, for example, Group members created and maintained the fake social media accounts through temporary email addresses, posted official PRC government content, and interacted with other online users to avoid the appearance that the Group accounts were “flooding” a given social media platform. The Group tracks the performances of members in fulfilling their online responsibilities and rewards Group members who successfully operate multiple online personas without detection by the social media companies who host the platforms or by other users of the platforms.

The investigation also uncovered official MPS taskings to Group members to compose articles and videos based on certain themes targeting, for example, the activities of Chinese dissidents located abroad or the policies of the U.S. government.

As alleged, the defendants also attempted to recruit U.S. persons to act as unwitting agents of the PRC government by disseminating propaganda or narratives of the PRC government. On several occasions, the defendants used online personas to contact individuals assessed to be sympathetic and supportive of the PRC government’s narratives and asked these individuals to disseminate Group content.

In addition, Group members took repeated affirmative actions to have Chinese dissidents and their meetings removed from the platform of Company-1. For example, Group members disrupted a dissident’s efforts to commemorate the Tiananmen Square Massacre through a videoconference by posting threats against the participants through the platform’s chat function. In another Company-1 videoconference on the topic of countering communism organized by a PRC dissident, Group members flooded the videoconference and drowned out the meeting with loud music and vulgar screams and threats directed at the pro-democracy participants.

United States v. Julien Jin, et al.

This amended complaint charges 10 individuals, including a former PRC-based Company-1 employee, six MPS officers, and two officials with the CAC, with conspiracy to commit interstate harassment and unlawful conspiracy to transfer means of identification. Nine of the defendants are believed to reside in the PRC and remain at large. The tenth defendant is believed to reside in Indonesia or the PRC and also remains at large.

“The amended complaint charging a former PRC-based employee of a U.S. telecommunications company illustrates the insider threat faced by U.S. companies operating in the PRC,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Pokorny for the Eastern District of New York, who thanked Company-1 for its cooperation in the government’s investigation. “As alleged, Julien Jin and his co-conspirators in the Ministry of Public Security and Cyberspace Administration of China weaponized the U.S. telecommunications company he worked for to intimidate and silence dissenters and enforce PRC law to the detriment of Chinese activists in New York, among other places, who had sought refuge in this country to peacefully express their pro-democracy views.”

“These cases demonstrate that the Chinese Communist Party, once again, attempted to intimidate, harass, and suppress Chinese dissidents in the United States,” said Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office. “In the United States, the freedom of speech is a cornerstone of our democracy, and the FBI will work tirelessly to defend everyone’s right to speak freely without fear of retribution from the CCP. These complex investigations revealed an MPS-wide effort to repress individuals by using the U.S. communications platform and fake social media accounts to censor political and religious speech.”

In December 2020, the Department first announced charges against Julien Jin in connection with his efforts to disrupt a series of meetings on the Company-1 platform held in May and June 2020 commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Jin served as Company-1’s primary liaison with PRC government law enforcement and intelligence services. In that capacity, he regularly responded to requests from the PRC government to terminate meetings and block users on Company-1’s video communications platform.

As detailed in the original complaint, Jin and others conspired to use Company-1’s U.S. systems to censor the political and religious speech of individuals located in the United States and elsewhere at the direction of the PRC government. For example, Jin and others disrupted meetings held on the Company-1 platform to discuss politically sensitive topics unacceptable to the PRC government – including the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Jin and his co-conspirators fabricated evidence of purported misconduct to cause U.S.-based employees of Company-1 to terminate the meetings.

The allegations in the amended complaint reveal that Jin worked directly with and took orders from defendants at the MPS and the CAC to disrupt meetings on the Company-1 platform and that the co-defendants had targeted U.S.-based dissidents’ speech on Company-1’s platform since 2018.

Starting in 2018, Jin and his co-defendants repeatedly sought to terminate video chat meetings organized by a Chinese dissident residing in New York City who has been a vocal critic of the PRC government and the Chinese Communist Party. After the CAC requested that Company-1 terminate the dissident’s meetings on the Company-1 platform, Jin worked to identify all accounts associated with the dissident, caused meetings related to the dissident to be hosted in a “quarantine zone” – that is, on a server with known lags in response time – and later worked to block all accounts associated with the dissident. Similarly, in 2019, Jin collaborated with the MPS and CAC to block accounts seeking to commemorate the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

The FBI Washington Field Office investigated the cases.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alexander A. Solomon, Antoinette N. Rangel, Ian C. Richardson, Nicholas J. Moscow and Jessica K. Weigel of the Eastern District of New York, and Trial Attorney Scott A. Claffee of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the cases.

The FBI has created a website for victims to report efforts by foreign governments to stalk, intimidate, or assault people in the United States. Please visit: www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/transnational-repression.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

A complaint was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, charging two defendants in connection with opening and operating an illegal overseas police station, located in lower Manhattan, New York, for a provincial branch of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). “Harry” Lu Jianwang, 61, of the Bronx, and Chen Jinping, 59, of Manhattan, were arrested earlier this morning at their homes in New York City. Their initial appearances are scheduled this afternoon in Brooklyn before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ramon E. Reyes Jr.

As alleged in the complaint, Lu and Chen are charged with conspiring to act as agents of the PRC government as well as obstructing justice by destroying evidence of their communications with an MPS official. The defendants worked together to establish the first overseas police station in the United States on behalf of the Fuzhou branch of the MPS. The police station – which closed in the fall of 2022 after those operating it became aware of the FBI’s investigation – occupied a floor in an office building in Manhattan’s Chinatown. While acting under the direction and control of an MPS Official, Lu and Chen helped open and operate the clandestine police station. None of the participants in the scheme informed the U.S. government that they were helping the PRC government surreptitiously open and operate an illegal MPS police station on U.S. soil.

“The PRC, through its repressive security apparatus, established a secret physical presence in New York City to monitor and intimidate dissidents and those critical of its government,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “The PRC’s actions go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct. We will resolutely defend the freedoms of all those living in our country from the threat of authoritarian repression.”

“This prosecution reveals the Chinese government’s flagrant violation of our nation’s sovereignty by establishing a secret police station in the middle of New York City,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York. “As alleged, the defendants and their co-conspirators were tasked with doing the PRC’s bidding, including helping locate a Chinese dissident living in the United States, and obstructed our investigation by deleting their communications. Such a police station has no place here in New York City – or any American community.”   

“It is simply outrageous that China’s Ministry of Public Security thinks it can get away with establishing a secret, illegal police station on U.S. soil to aid its efforts to export repression and subvert our rule of law,” said Acting Assistant Director Kurt Ronnow of the FBI Counterintelligence Division. “This case serves as a powerful reminder that the People’s Republic of China will stop at nothing to bend people to their will and silence messages they don’t want anyone to hear. The FBI is dedicated to protecting everyone in the United States against efforts to undermine our democratic freedoms, and we’ll hold any state actors – and those who help them – accountable for breaking our laws.”

Before helping to open the police station in early 2022, Lu had a longstanding relationship of trust with PRC law enforcement, including the MPS. Since 2015, and through the operation of the secret police station, Lu was tasked with carrying out various activities, including to assist the PRC government’s repressive activities on U.S. soil:

• In 2015, during PRC President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States, Lu participated in counterprotests in Washington, D.C,. against members of a religion that is forbidden under PRC law. A deputy director of the MPS awarded Lu a plaque for the work he performed on behalf of the PRC government.
• In 2018, Lu was enlisted in efforts to cause a purported PRC fugitive to return to the PRC. The victim reported being repeatedly harassed to return to the PRC, including through threats of violence made to the victim and the victim’s family in the United States and in the PRC.
• In 2022, the MPS Official sought Lu’s assistance in locating an individual living in California who is a pro-democracy activist. In turn, Lu enlisted the help of another coconspirator. Later, when confronted by the FBI about these conversations, Lu denied that they occurred.

In October 2022, the FBI conducted a judicially authorized search of the illegal police station. In connection with the search, FBI agents interviewed both Lu and Chen and seized their phones. In reviewing the contents of these phones, FBI agents observed that communications between Lu and Chen, on the one hand, and the MPS Official, on the other, appeared to have been deleted. In subsequent consensual interviews, Lu and Chen admitted to the FBI that they had deleted their communications with the MPS Official after learning about the ongoing FBI investigation, thus preventing the FBI from learning the full extent of the MPS’s directions for the overseas police station.

If convicted of conspiring to act as agents of the PRC, the defendants face a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The obstruction of justice charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The FBI New York Field Office investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alexander A. Solomon and Antoinette N. Rangel for the Eastern District of New York, and Trial Attorney Scott A. Claffee of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.

The FBI has created a website for victims to report efforts by foreign governments to stalk, intimidate, or assault people in the United States. If you believe that you are or have been a victim of transnational repression, please visit: www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/transnational-repression.

The charges in the complaint are merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

Remarks as Delivered

Well, hello everyone. It is my great pleasure to welcome Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin back to the Justice Department today.

Andriy and I last saw each other during my trip to Ukraine in March. There, alongside President Zelenskyy and our international partners, we discussed our joint work to hold the Russian regime accountable for its atrocities against the Ukrainian people.

Today, we met to continue our conversation about the future of justice for Ukraine. We discussed our partnership and all the ways that we are working to strengthen it. And we reaffirmed our shared commitment to protecting democracy and the rule of law.

For over a year, Russia has engaged in an unjust war against Ukraine, committing atrocities at the largest scale of any armed conflict since the Second World War.

And for over a year, the people of Ukraine have fought with courage and conviction to protect their country.  

They have worked with unflagging resolve to record the brutalities committed against thousands of Ukrainian men, women, and children – and to hold the perpetrators of those atrocities accountable under the law.  

They have risked – and sacrificed – their lives in the defense of their country. 

The United States Department of Justice stands with them. And we are doing everything in our power to achieve the accountability necessary for true justice for Ukraine.  

During our meeting today, the Prosecutor General and I exchanged updates on our work with the Ukraine Joint Investigative Team, or JIT. Anchored by a partnership between seven countries, the JIT is investigating core international crimes committed in Ukraine.

During my trip to Lviv last month, I signed a Memorandum of Understanding that formalizes and facilitates our cooperation and coordination with the JIT.

As we discussed today, to further strengthen this partnership, the Justice Department will detail an experienced prosecutor to the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine, which is hosted by the JIT.

The prosecutor will be based in The Hague at Eurojust – the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation – and he will provide access to the significant Departmental resources that we have deployed in response to this crisis.  

The Justice Department is also planning to send a Resident Legal Advisor to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv this summer. That advisor will work with our Ukrainian partners on a variety of complex justice sector issues.

In addition to these efforts, Andriy and I discussed the Department’s continuing work to hold the Russian regime accountable for its atrocities.

Prosecutors working with the Justice Department’s War Crimes Accountability Team continue to work closely with our counterparts in the Prosecutor General’s Office to investigate specific crimes committed by Russian forces, including unlawful attacks directed at civilians.  

Our Ukrainian colleagues are also assisting us with our investigations that are led by the War Crimes Accountability Team into potential war crimes over which the United States possesses criminal jurisdiction. These include crimes in which American citizens have been harmed or killed. At the same time, Congress has recently expanded the Justice Department’s authority to prosecute alleged war criminals who are found here in the United States. This means that in the years – and the decades – ahead, Russian war criminals who set foot in our country should expect to find themselves before U.S. courts of law.

Meanwhile our Task Force KleptoCapture – a team of prosecutors, agents, analysts, translators, and other personnel – continues to bring prosecutions and effect seizures against sanctioned enablers of the Kremlin and Russian military. 

And as I discussed the last time that Andriy was here, we are exercising new authority granted by Congress to transfer certain assets that we have seized from Russian oligarchs for use in rebuilding Ukraine.  

I want to acknowledge the many Justice Department personnel involved in this work.

I also want to thank our domestic and international partners for joining us in this important effort to support the investigation and prosecution of atrocities in Ukraine.

We will do everything we can to help Ukraine achieve justice for its people. And we will work for as long as it takes to hold accountable under law those who bear responsibility for the Russian regime’s brutal crimes.  

I’m now to going turn this over to the Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.