The Spies Who Loved Noodles: Defendant in Secret Chinese Police Station Case Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy
An East Broadway outpost of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security—disguised as a Fujian service center—operated above the Lanzou Ramen restaurant for much of 2022 before it was exposed, authorities charged.
| 20 Dec 2024 | 03:28
Glass facade building 107 East Broadway, near the corner of Pike Street c. 2022. On the ground floor is Lazhou Ramen. On the third floor, a secret People Republic of China police station. Today, the police station, and the scaffolding are gone. The noodles, happily, remain. (
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Naturalized US citizen and Chinese spy, Chen Jinping. (
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You heard the story about the secret Chinese police station above a ramen shop in Chinatown, yes? No?
Either way, it’s a true story, and a weird one, which on Dec. 18, saw one of its two defendants, Chen Jinping, a naturalized US citizen, plead guilty in Eastern District of New York (EDNY) federal court in Brooklyn on one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government—namely, the People’s Republic of China.
For this violation of the Espionage Act, Jinping now faces up to five years in prison. His sentencing date is scheduled for May 30. The case against Jinping’s co-defendant “Harry” Lu Jianwang, also a naturalized U.S. citizen, is still pending.
Though arrested in Manhattan, the cases are in Brooklyn federal court, because overt acts of their alleged conspiracy took place at JFK Airport, which is within EDNY jurisdiction.
The specific charges against Jinpeng and Jianwang were unveiled on April 17, 2023, when the duo was arrested at their respective homes in Manhattan and the Bronx, and charged with operating an illegal overseas police station—pause a moment over this phrase—for a “provincial” branch of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
While exact comparisons aren’t easy to make, the MPS combines many functions the United States assigns to the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies, as well as state and local police. It’s further believed by the feds that espionage units within MPS work with the Chinese Ministry of State Security, whose duties resemble those of the FBI and CIA.
“Provincial” in this instance is not a figurative term but a literal one: the East Broadway police station being a branch of MPS in Fuzhou, the capital and largest city (population 8+ million) of the Fujian province. To the extent Manhattanites know Fuzhou, it’s most likely for their inexpensive, no frills Fujian restaurants that have dotted Chinatown since the 1990s.
As for the Fujians’ secret police station, it opened on the third floor of 107 East Broadway in early 2022. For a “secret” operation, the location was a prominent one, just off the bustling southeast corner of East Broadway and Pike Street.
Back in 1940, this corner was occupied by a large apartment building, with the two businesses, both Jewish, on the East Broadway side: Jacobs Pharmacy and Luncheonette, and W.M. Teitlebaum Sewing Machines and Motors.
Most of the Jews had left and many Chinese moved in when this corner of Chinatown began its new life in 2011, as construction began on seven-story building at 109 East Broadway. A Fairfield Inn & Suites hotel opened here in 2013, with the Chinatown Supermarket of Manhattan following in 2014.
That same year, construction began on a six-story, glass-encased office building at 107 East Broadway. Completed in the summer 2016, Lanzhou Ramen opened on the ground floor by fall 2017.
And so, with a popular noodle shop, grocery store and hotel among its neighbors, in early 2022, an erstwhile non-profit organization, the America ChangLe Association, moved in, occupying the third floor of 109 East Broadway. Ostensibly a service center for Fujian New Yorkers, it was actually an MPS police station tasked with spying on Chinese dissidents.
The existence of the station became a scandal that October, with a New York Post story headlined “Chinese ‘police station in NYC that spies on dissenters run by shady charity on IRS blacklist.”
While the Justice and State Departments seemed to have been caught napping by the revelations, an attentive IRS was on the ball, as they’d revoked the America ChangLe Association’s tax-exempt status that May for failing to submit tax filings for three straight years.
The President of said Association: “Harry” Lu Jianwang—whom Justice Department would catch up to when the then 61-year-old, and Chen Jinping, 59, were arrested in April 2023.
“This prosecution reveals the Chinese government’s flagrant violation of our nation’s sovereignty by establishing a secret police station in the middle of New York City,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace at the time. “As alleged, the defendants and their co-conspirators were tasked with doing the PRC’s bidding, including helping locate a Chinese dissident living in the United States, and obstructed our investigation by deleting their communications. Such a police station has no place here in New York City – or any American community.”
Upon Jinping’s guilty plea, Peace said, “Today, a participant in a transnational repression scheme who worked to establish a secret police station in the middle of New York City on behalf of the national police force of the People’s Republic of China has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to act as an illegal agent. We will continue our efforts to protect the rights of vulnerable persons who come to this country to escape the repressive activities of authoritarian regimes.”
Peace is resigning his post on January 10, 2025. He is being replaced by First Assistant U.S. Attorney, Carolyn Pokorny.
At 109 East Broadway, Lanzou Ramen remains open, and their hand-pulled beef noodle soup is highly recommended.