Lu Jianwang Goes on Trial in Brooklyn on Charges of Acting as Unregistered Chinese Agent

Lu Jianwang went on trial Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court on charges of conspiring to act as a foreign agent and destroying evidence including WeChat messages. U.S. citizen for decades, who also goes by Harry Lu, was arrested at his Bronx home in April 2023, more than three years before the proceedings began.

U.S. authorities had raided the alleged New York City outpost on Oct. 3, 2022. Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping established the Chinatown outpost in 2022 after Lu attended a ceremony in his native Fujian province where China’s Ministry of Public Security announced it was opening 30 such secret police stations around the world, prosecutor Lindsey Oken said in her opening statement.

The plain, glass-clad building stands six stories between a hotel, a spa and a coffee shop in the heart of Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood. ” The Manhattan outpost shared offices with the America ChangLe Association, which Lu Jianwang and his brother Jimmy helped run. ” ChangLe means “eternal joy,” a defense lawyer said.

Fortune reported that the organization was open about offering a service to remotely renew Chinese driver’s licenses amid COVID-19 pandemic-era travel restrictions. “Lu was living in New York City but he was working for the Chinese government,” Lindsey Oken said in an opening statement.

” Oken said Lu worked for China without registering with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Lu Jianwang kept in touch with his handler via WeChat and deleted those messages, according to prosecutors. The next day after the raid, he admitted to FBI agents that he established the Manhattan outpost and had deleted the messages. Neither of Lu’s two-hour FBI interviews were recorded, his lawyer noted.

Chen Jinping has pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to act as a foreign agent. He pleaded guilty in December 2024 and remains free on bond. Chen Jinping will be sentenced after Lu’s trial. Lu Jianwang’s lawyer, John Carman, offered a sharply different account in his opening statement.

“Lu was arrested for failing to file a form,” John Carman said. Evidence will show that Lu is “not a spy, not a part of Chinese intelligence services, not a part of the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, and he’s not an agent of the Chinese government,” he added. “No one controls him.

If Harry Lu is an agent of anyone, he is an agent for his community — the local people in his community,” John Carman told jurors. ” The FBI raid, prompted by a report from an organization monitoring Chinese transnational repression, involved rifling through drawers, busting into locked cabinets and a safe, and seizing a computer and cellphones.

Lu Jianwang sat at the defense table Wednesday alongside Baimadajie Angwang, a former NYPD officer who was cleared three years ago of charges accusing him of being an “intelligence asset” for the Chinese government.

Baimadajie Angwang is working as an investigator for Lu’s defense team. Lu, wearing a dark suit, pale blue tie and glasses, speaks limited English and listened through an earpiece as an interpreter translated the proceedings into Fujianese. Both men wore American flag pins on their lapels.

” and waving small American flags. The supporters included members of Lu’s church. Fortune reported that the rally occurred as Lu and his legal team arrived at the courthouse.