New York:- A New York City police officer was charged by federal prosecutors with aiding the Chinese government’s surveillance of ethnic Tibetans living in the city. Baimadajie Angwang, 33, was charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent, along with wire fraud, making false statements, and obstruction of a national security background investigation by the U.S. Defense Department. He was “spotted and assessed potential ethnic Tibetan intelligence sources” for China.
Angwang has had a relationship since 2018 with two officials working at the Chinese consulate in New York, the U.S. said. One of the officials worked at the China Association for Preservation and Development of Tibetan Culture, which prosecutors said was responsible for “neutralizing sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority” of China. Prosecutors say Angwang, an ethnic Tibetan, got asylum in the U.S. after claiming he’d been arrested and tortured in China because of his ancestry. U.S. authorities now say those claims were false, based on Angwang’s numerous trips back to China since then. U.S. authorities say their evidence includes recorded conversations of one Chinese official who has been Angwang’s “handler” and gave him “tasks” to perform. Angwang called and texted the second Chinese official’s mobile phone on at least 53 occasions between August 2014 and August 2017.
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