A New York man was found guilty on Wednesday of acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government after he was accused of operating a “secret police station” on behalf of Beijing in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said Lu Jianwang, 64, should have alerted the US attorney general that he was a Chinese agent when he helped open the so-called police station in 2022. They also said he helped China’s government locate a pro-democracy activist living in California.

Lu was arrested in April 2023. He had pleaded not guilty to the three felony charges he faced: conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent, acting as an unregistered agent of China and obstruction of justice.

A jury in Brooklyn federal court reached the verdict after a weeklong trial. Lu faces up to 30 years in prison.

“May today’s verdict send a message to other foreign agents – the FBI maintains its unwavering resolve to reveal and disrupt the clandestine operations of adversarial nations,” said FBI assistant director in charge James Barnacle in an announcement of the verdict.

The justice department has in recent years been ramping up inquiries into what it calls “transnational repression” by US adversaries such as China and Iran to intimidate political opponents living in the United States.

China’s government has called the charges in the case “fabricated” and part of an effort to smear the country’s image. Beijing has said there are centers outside China run by local volunteers, not Chinese police officers, that aim to help Chinese citizens renew documents and offer other services.

In her opening statement on 6 May, prosecutor Lindsey Oken said Lu – a naturalized US citizen – had ties to Chinese law enforcement and met with officials who tasked him with opening the station during a trip to China in 2022.

Oken said Lu ran the station out of a nondescript office building in Chinatown. She said he started out by helping Chinese nationals living in New York with renewing driver’s licenses, which alone is a crime if not disclosed to the US government.

Oken said Lu also agreed to help the Chinese government locate a pro-democracy activist living in the United States. Prosecutors did not allege that the activist was harmed.

John Carman, a lawyer for Lu, said his client agreed to open the center to help Chinese nationals who were unable to travel to the country to renew documents due to the Covid pandemic. But Carman said Lu was not tasked with doing so by the Chinese government.

A codefendant arrested alongside Lu, Chen Jinping, pleaded guilty in 2024 to conspiring to act as an unregistered Chinese agent.

The arrests followed a 2022 investigation published by Spain-based advocacy group Safeguard Defenders that reported China had set up overseas “service stations”, including in New York, that illegally worked with Chinese police to pressure fugitives to return to China.

The verdict comes two days after the mayor of Arcadia, California, agreed to plead guilty to charges of acting as an illegal agent of China. Eileen Wang, who resigned her position as the plea deal was announced, had coordinated with China to post pro-China propaganda to a website billed as a news source for the area’s Chinese American community.

Reuters contributed reporting