Chinese NYPD Police Officer Fired for Trying to Help the CCP (Documents)

Metro

By Tina Moore

A Chinese NYPD police officer has been fired by the department for allegedly spying for the CCP, according to internal disciplinary records.

Lt. Steven Li was working in the Bureau of Internal Affairs when he helped a Chinese national make contact with a woman targeted by the Chinese government between 2019 and 2021, FBI and NYPD investigators alleged.

Chinese national Sun Hoi Ying was in the United States to lead “Operation Fox Hunt,” a program launched in 2014 aimed at repatriating suspected Chinese fugitives, sometimes bypassing authorities, to face charges in the People's Republic of China. China, according to the documents.

Li allegedly arranged meetings for Ying in the city with the woman, identified as “Huang” in the documents. She was accused in China of embezzling money from a Chinese state-owned company before moving to the United States in 2001.

The following year, the Chinese Communist Party accused her of using the stolen money to purchase various properties in China. The Chinese Communist Party seized the properties, which had been the subject of ongoing litigation for several years, according to the documents.

Ying was sent to the United States to pressure the woman into settling the dispute. Li met the woman several times and communicated with Sun. Investigators looked into whether he was acting as a PRC agent and whether he pressured the woman.

Li denied acting as an agent and said he made it clear to the victim, whom he knew at community events and occasionally dined with, that he was a police officer and that he He did not represent Sun or the Chinese government. according to the NYPD dismissal order.

“The idea was that since (Li) was a police officer, a position held in high esteem in the Chinese community,” according to the document, “the woman would be more willing to discuss her case with Sun, who would be her intermediary. »

The three met at a Queens restaurant on Dec. 1, 2019. Li claimed he made the introductions but left the room “while they were both talking about the dispute,” according to police documents from New York.

At one point, Li texted an unidentified person on WeChat to report that the targeted woman seemed “a little emotional.”

Sun also sent mugshots to Li asking for verification, but there was no evidence the cop gave their names to the NYPD.

He was also accused of making false statements to the FBI in interviews and failing to inform the New York Police Department of the investigation for two years.

Li has not been criminally charged.

The ministry concluded that he had not pressured anyone and was not acting as a Chinese agent. But the New York Police Department convicted him in a trial of making false statements and failing to report the FBI investigation.

He was fired on February 16, according to information first uncovered by Documented.

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