A Daily Caller News Foundation journalist described Monday how an important Chinese intelligence service operates quietly “service centers” within seven American cities.
Philip Lenczycki, WMAL’s talk show host Vince Coglianese (who is also the editorial director of Daily Caller) said that the Overseas Chinese Service Centers are located in San Francisco California, Houston Texas, Omaha Nebraska, St. Paul Minnesota, Salt Lake City Utah, St. Louis Missouri, and Charlotte North Carolina. The centers were created to help Chinese nationals living abroad. They are located within nonprofits in the U.S.
Lenczycki explained to Coglianese that “we found that there is a Chinese Communist Party Intelligence Service called the United Front Work Department. It turns out that this service operates 60… overseas Chinese service centres around the world, and seven of these are in the United States.”
Lenczycki stated that officials of China’s Ministry of Public Security met with individuals from the OCSCs to discuss how they can assist Chinese law enforcement. In a 2022 complaint and an indictment, the Justice Department accused China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of engaging in extortion.
Lenczycki stated that “we found that some of these overseas Chinese stations in other countries such as Ireland, and so on, are actually a part the same program the New York station participated in.” This is a very serious matter, as the Chinese government has stated that these entities are all required to provide ‘consular support’, which can include, for example, assisting consulates in processing visas, just like we have seen in some cases in United States. Other countries, such as South Africa, have similar programs. We’ve seen a sort of evolution to ‘forms patrols’, where the police are actually going around with guns and acting as police.”
In April, the Justice Department indicted 2 individuals on multiple counts alleging they had helped China harass its citizens abroad. After the FBI raided an identical station in New York, there has been concern about such centers.
