#chinese agent

When Your Own Manifesto Becomes "Anti-National": The Sonam Wangchuk Comedy

So, our beloved government has finally cracked the code to national security – arrest the guy who's literally asking for what you promised in your own manifesto!

Meet Sonam Wangchuk, Ladakh's poster boy for peaceful activism, who committed the heinous crime of... checks notes... demanding exactly what the BJP manifesto promised in 2019. You know, tiny things like 6th Schedule inclusion, statehood for Ladakh, and those pesky job reservations. Basically, he took their election pamphlet seriously. Rookie mistake!

The government's logic is flawless: Promise something → Get votes → Call the same demand "anti-national" → Arrest the demander. It's like ordering pizza and then calling the delivery boy a burglar for showing up at your door.

Sonam Wangchuk was on a 15-day hunger strike (because apparently, starving yourself is now a national security threat) when some frustrated youth decided to redecorate the BJP office in Leh. But here's the kicker – they carefully preserved the Indian flag while burning down the party office. That's more respect for national symbols than most politicians show!

The Ministry of Home Affairs swiftly cancelled his NGO's FCRA licence because nothing says "development" like cutting off educational funding. They've charged him under the National Security Act and shipped him off to Jodhpur jail. Because heaven forbid someone in Ladakh actually remembers election promises!

Meanwhile, Wangchuk – the same guy who invented solar tents for our soldiers and championed "Boycott Chinese Products" – is now being called a Chinese agent. The irony is thicker than Delhi's smog during Diwali.

FBI notified Twitter of at least one Chinese agent in company

Disclosures from a former Twitter executive turned whistleblower show that at least one Chinese agent is working at the company. By REUTERS Updated: SEPTEMBER 13, 2022 17:38    Disclosures from a former Twitter Inc TWTR.N executive turned whistleblower show that at least one Chinese agent is working at the company, Senator Chuck Grassley said in his opening remarks during a Senate hearing on…

The U.S. Department of Justice on Oct. 28 announced unprecedented charges against eight men over their alleged role in carrying out a campaign orchestrated by the Chinese regime to coerce a U.S. resident to return to mainland China.

The criminal complaint, unsealed on Wednesday, alleges that the individuals had for three years targeted a former Chinese government employee and his wife and daughter, who have been living in New Jersey since 2010.

Federal prosecutors alleged that they were acting under the direction of Chinese officials to surveil, harass, and stalk the family.

The New Jersey man was targeted under a Chinese extralegal campaign known as “Operation Fox Hunt“—which was initiated by Beijing in 2014 to repatriate fugitives targeted by the Chinese Communist Party, including dissidents and officials who’ve fallen out of favor with the Party. To protect the victim’s identity, the department did not provide details on why he was targeted by the regime.

The eight individuals, based both in the United States and China, were charged with conspiring to act as illegal agents of China. Six defendants were also charged with conspiring to commit interstate and international stalking.

Five defendants were arrested this morning in New Jersey, New York, and California. They were Zhu Yong, a Chinese citizen and U.S. permanent resident; Jin Hongru, a naturalized U.S. citizen; Michael McMahon, a U.S. citizen who was hired as a private investigator in the scheme; Rong Jing and Zheng Congying, both Chinese citizens with U.S. permanent residencies. Three remain at-large in China: Zhu Feng, Hu Ji, and Li Minjun.

“With today’s charges, we have turned the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] Operation Fox Hunt on its head—the hunters became the hunted, the pursuers the pursued,”  Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said at a press conference.

Demers described the defendants’ alleged conduct as “shocking but standard operating procedure for Operation Fox Hunt.” For instance, the complaint alleges that several defendants, with the help of unnamed Chinese officials, carried out a scheme to bring the New Jersey man’s elderly father from China to the United States for a surprise visit—in an effort to coerce the man into returning to China.

Acting U.S. Attorney Seth D. DuCharme said some of the tactics were “shockingly overt,” such as surveillance using night vision goggles.

The scheme also included imprisoning the victim’s sister in China, harassing the victim’s adult daughter online, and leaving menacing notes on the victim’s door, Demers said.

Prosecutors alleged that in September 2018, Zheng and another unidentified co-conspirator affixed a note on the victim’s door that read: “If you are willing to go back to mainland [China] and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be all right.  That’s the end of this matter!”

Other co-conspirators left packages at the victim’s home in early 2019, the justice department said, which contained letters and a video with messages that threatened harm to the victim’s family members in China if he did not return to China.

“These are not the actions we would expect from a responsible nation state,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said at the press conference. “Instead, it’s more like something we’d expect from an organized criminal syndicate.”