WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 Two suspected Chinese intelligence officers have been charged with attempting to obstruct a U.S. criminal investigation of Chinese tech giant Huawei by offering bribes to someone they thought could provide inside information, the Justice Department announced Monday.
The defendants are accused of paying tens of thousands of dollars in digital currency, along with cash and jewelry, to a U.S. official they thought they had recruited as an asset. But the person was actually a double agent working for the FBI, the department said.
That prosecution, as well as two other cases involving Chinese operatives, was highlighted Monday at a news conference that featured the heads of both the FBI and the Justice Department, a rare joint presence reflecting a concerted American show of force against Chinese intelligence efforts. Washington has long accused Beijing of and intellectual property.
Besides the two men on Monday, 11 other Chinese nationals have been charged with offenses in the last week, including harassment of individuals in the U.S., that FBI Director Christopher Wray said show that China鈥檚 鈥渆conomic assaults and their rights violations are part of the same problem.鈥
鈥淭hey try to silence anyone who fights back against their theft 鈥 companies, politicians, individuals 鈥 just as they try to silence anyone who fights back against their other aggressions,鈥 he said.
In the Huawei case, Guochun He and Zheng Wang, are accused of trying to direct a U.S. official to supply confidential information about the Justice Department's investigation, including about witnesses, trial evidence and potential new charges.
The latest announcements came just days after as leader of China's Communist Party, though Wray dismissed the idea of a possible connection in the timing, noting 鈥渨e bring cases when they're ready.鈥
鈥淚f the Chinese government, the Chinese Communist Party, continues to violate our laws, they're going to keep encountering the FBI," he said.
The Justice Department separately announced charges against four other Chinese nationals, accusing them of using the cover of an academic institute to try to procure sensitive technology and equipment as well as interfering with protests that 鈥渨ould have been embarrassing to the Chinese government.鈥
And it highlighted two additional people were arrested and five others charged with harassing someone living in the U.S. to return to China as part of what 鈥淥peration Fox Hunt.鈥
鈥淭oday's cases make clear that Chinese agents will not hesitate to break the law and to violate international norms in the process,鈥 Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said.
The case connected to the Huawei probe dates to January 2019. The company, a top executive and several subsidiaries had just been indicted on U.S. charges of financial fraud, trade secret theft and sanctions violations.
Wang and He, according to prosecutors, were eager for non-public information about the prosecution and the status of the investigation. They reached out to a contact they had known since 2017, but the person 鈥 who was not identified by name 鈥 began working as a double agent and engaged in a back-and-forth with the defendants that was overseen by the FBI.
At one point last year, prosecutors say, the person passed to the defendants a single-page document that appeared to be classified and that contained information about a purported Justice Department plan to charge and arrest Huawei executives who were living in China. The person said the document had been secretly photographed during a meeting with federal prosecutors.
The document was prepared specifically for the purposes of the prosecution that was unsealed Monday, and the information in it was neither accurate nor an accurate reflection of any Justice Department plans, officials said.
The company is not named in the charging documents and prosecutors declined at Monday's news conference to name it, though the references make clear that it鈥檚 Huawei.
Spokespeople for Huawei and the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately return messages seeking comment. Huawei has previously called the federal investigation 鈥減olitical persecution, plain and simple."
鈥淎ttacking Huawei will not help the U.S. stay ahead of the competition,鈥 the company said in a published in 2020.
In the case linked to 鈥淥peration Fox Hunt,鈥 prosecutors say Chinese agents tried to intimidate an unnamed person and his family to return to China. Part of the plot, the U.S. alleges, involved having the person's nephew travel to the U.S. as part of a tour group to deliver threats that included, "Coming back and turning yourself in is the only way out.鈥
___
This story was first published on Oct. 24, 2022. It was updated on Oct. 25, 2022 to correct that the 13 Chinese nationals charged in the last week include men and women, not only men.
