A former New York City police sergeant charged with acting as an illegal Chinese agent for allegedly intimidating a US-based fugitive from China went on trial on Wednesday and argued he did not know that the country’s government was behind a private surveillance job he took.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said Michael McMahon pressured a New Jersey resident, Xu Jin, to return to China to face bribery and embezzlement charges, one example of a global repatriation campaign by Chinese law enforcement known as “Operation Fox Hunt.”
The case is the first of several involving alleged Fox Hunt schemes to reach trial in the US, as officials crack down on what they term “transnational repression” on dissidents and fugitives by adversaries including China.
Photo: AFP
McMahon is on trial alongside Zhu Yong, who prosecutors said hired him for the job in 2016, and Zheng Congying, who is accused of posting a note to Xu’s door in 2018 reading: “If you are willing to go back to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be all right.”
All three men have pleaded not guilty to charges of acting as illegal Chinese agents without notifying the US Attorney General, as required by law, and interstate stalking.
Beijing has dismissed the case as a smear of its efforts to pursue criminal suspects overseas.
In opening statements before a federal jury, McMahon’s lawyer, Lawrence Lustberg, said his client was told he was working for a Chinese construction company trying to recover assets and alerted local law enforcement to his activities.
“If he’s secretly acting on behalf of the Chinese government, is he going to call the cops and tell them?” Lustberg said. “He had no idea, none ... that he was working for China.”
Irisa Chen, a prosecutor, said McMahon searched the target’s name on the Internet and even met a Chinese official during the course of his work, suggesting he saw through the “vague” cover story.
“McMahon knew this was not the true reason,” Chen said in her opening statement. “He looked the other way.”
Lawyers for Zhu and Zheng, both Chinese citizens and New York City residents, also said their clients did not know they were working for China’s government.
Xu had directed the municipal development division of Wuhan, China, before being charged with taking millions of dollars in bribes, according to a 2021 ProPublica investigation.
In her opening statement, Chen did not refer to Xu by name, referring to him only as a former Chinese government official who came to the US in 2010 after falling out of favor with the ruling Chinese Communist Party. China’s government then put out an international notice for his arrest, Chen said.
Xu was identified by name by the first witness, his sister-in-law Liu Yan.
She testified that at two separate points in 2016, individuals she did not know came to her Short Hills, New Jersey, home and told her that Xu should go back to China.
“I felt very scared,” she said.
Then, in early 2017, Xu’s elderly father, who lived in China and did not know her US address, showed up unannounced at Liu’s home and told her that he had a “task” to persuade Xu to go back to China.
Chen said in her opening statement Xu’s father was being used as “bait.”
“I cannot believe the law enforcement of China’s government was using an elderly man to meet their goal,” Liu said.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS