this is new york city's chinatown where the fant
and the practical attracts tourists and locals all
looking for a piece of china on every corner, but
hidden from public view on these busy streets is a
secret that has captured the attention of the U.S.
Government. That secret first came to light this past
fall when the european human rights organizat
safeguard defenders revealed th Locations of more than
100 suspected Chinese police service stations around
the world including New York. The group says Chinese
law enforcement quietly set up these outposts to track
harass and repatriate Chinese citizens here in the U.S.
The FBI has set its sights on Manhattan's chinatown
a single building that's home to a chinese outfit known
as the America Shawn Law Association, which promotes
itself as a place that helps chinese nationals in new
york. But something more nefarious is at play. There
says Attorney Mike Gao Xiang Law Association number on
job is get a personal information and gave the chines
government Gao once worked in china's public security
Ministry conducting criminal investigations, But after
participating in protests against the Chinese
government in Tiananmen Square 1989, he fled to the
us. Now he represents chinese citizens in new york who
say they've been persecuted by their government and
that the shang Law association has become in effect a
long arm of china. They even say we have camera
everywhere. We take a video everywhere and we can send
this stuff back to china. It's not only Sean La Gao
says china half a world away has run operations that
have targeted his clients because of their wealth or
history of dissent. Are they going after men and women,
young and old. They don't care whether or not your men
or women or young men or older men. They don't care.
This client Maayan knows what it's like to be
threatened on U.S. Soil. He showed us a photo that he
says police in china texted him two years ago after he
refused to return. It's a picture of my daughter caged.
He says he was so frightened of what authorities
do next. He stopped communicating with his family i
china china has the strategic intent to influence
worldwide. None of these tactics surprised john Darby,
the National Security Agency's former director of
operations. How good is china tracking some of their
own down I think it's fair to say china is would be
very good at tracking down individuals. They
interested in. The chinese population dwarfs the United
States and their intelligence the size of their
intelligence services dwarf tha of the United States.
Um, so just in terms of pure volume of activity, it'
more he says in a case like the chinese governmen
likely put him on a target list to monitor his Wech
communications in near real tim We wanted to know if
Sean Law associates were involv in the same kind of
intimidation campaign. So we headed to the outpost to
new Yorkers passing by. There's no indication something
may be happening here about the ramen shop. It's
surrounded by stores, restaurants, hotels. The everyd
bustle of new york. Hello, I'm a reporter. Okay, thank
you. Hello, how are you Sorry can we come in My boss We
asked for his boss's business card. The name on the
card. Jimmy lu a campaign donor to lawmakers. We called,
texted and emailed. Lou please leave your message. You
did not respond. But we did find this video from this
past september and in it lou announces that his
association was entrusted with setting up a police
department inside the shangla association. We also
found this image of Shangla associates inside the
office with a banner announcing an overseas police
service station posted in chinese media this past
spring. But during our visit, the banner was gone. In a
statement to scripts. News. The spokesperson for the
chinese embassy in Washington denied the existence of
police stations saying they help with driver's license
renewals. The venues are provided by local overseas
chinese communities. They're not police personnel from
china. There's no need to make people nervous about
this. But a former U.S. National security official
familiar with china's tactics told us FBI agents have
warned state and local police that plainclothes chines
police may try to approach them for information a
chinese nationals. FBI has like a long list for those
people who support or work on behalf of chinese
government even only in flushing area. How many people
300. and they're here still in the US correct 300
operatives in one new york city borough alone. It's a
number of scripts news could not independently verify
but china experts we talked to for this story say new
york is likely a pilot project for the rest of America
Where else in the country do you see this happening
everywhere Los Angeles and Chicago Miami everywhere
boston even D.C. Now a man named jin ji Chen who is a
researcher from safeguard defenders. He responded when
I told him that chinese officials said that the
outposts were meant to provide services like driver's
license renewals and he called it an absurd excuse
because chinese consulates in the U.S. Are so supposed
to be doing that work. And according to records that I
obtained the shangla associatio it was able to buy
that office space through alone with the queens new
york branch of the bank of china which is majority
state owned. So more connections. Their chance. Yeah
this could be a pilot project for many other projects
You kind of go back to remember when Russia they fo
that little group that was operating here that was a
big story. This was in major american cities huge.
Could you talk a little bit more about the bigger
concern that these operations are happening in the US.
Well the reason we should all be concerned is because
essentially this is a foreign government conducting
operations secretly silently on people who are living
on U.S. Soil. It's something that FBI director chr
wray testified about last fall and a former senior
official tells me FBI officials are very concerned
about this. That they've been doing what's called
knocking talks where they try to pressure these
operatives to shut down their own operations experts
that I talked to for this story saying that there ar
no limits to how far china will go to track down their
own citizens. And that this appears to be something
that falls under the efforts of Chinese President Xi
Jinping in his anti corruption campaign target
dissidents, whistleblowers, fut and business people
to try to bring them back to china wherever they are in
the world. And experts also said that they believe this
might be a test to see how the US responds. Meanwh
that lawyer Mike got, he said that he believes that
china dreams of using these same tactics someday on
americans. Chance that's chilling Sasha, Ingber eye
opening report there. Thank you very much