In July 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice announced two indictments charging Iranian and Chinese government officials and others acting at their behest with a variety of crimes stemming from two separate plots to coerce U.S. residents to return to those countries. The first involved four Iranians and a U.S. resident who took steps to kidnap a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin and transport her to Iran to answer for regime criticism. The second charged nine individuals, including a Chinese prosecutor and a policeman, with crimes relating to an operation to surveil, harass, and threaten U.S. residents with the aim of compelling their return to China. U.S officials denounced the operations as contrary to human rights and the rule of law.
The U.S. indictments follow several recent high-profile examples of authoritarian states targeting dissidents abroad in operations that have drawn international condemnation. For example, on February 13, 2017, two unwitting assassins directed by North Korean agents doused Kim Jong-nam, the “estranged elder brother” of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, with a VX nerve agent in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, leading to his death.Footnote 1 The incident damaged relations between North Korea and Malaysia and prompted the United States to sanction North Korea.Footnote 2 In another case, on March 4, 2018, two members of Russia's G.R.U. military intelligence agency applied the Novichok nerve agent to the doorknob of former Russian spy and corruption whistleblower Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England resulting in the near fatal poisoning of him and others, as well as at least one death.Footnote 3 In response, the United Kingdom, United States, and other allies expelled Russian diplomats, and the United States sanctioned Russia.Footnote 4 Also in 2018, Saudi Arabian agents killed U.S.-based Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey in an operation that U.S. intelligence agencies have publicly confirmed was ordered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.Footnote 5 In February 2021, the Biden administration announced “Khashoggi Ban” visa sanctions on seventy-six Saudis “believed to have been engaged in threatening dissidents overseas, including but not limited to the Khashoggi killing,” adding to sanctions imposed in 2018 on direct participants in the killing.Footnote 6 More recently, on May 23, 2021, Belarusian authorities forced a Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania to land in Minsk in order to arrest exiled Belarusian dissident Roman Protasevich, who was a passenger on the plane.Footnote 7 The interference with international aviation prompted widespread international condemnation and sanctions against the Belarusian regime.Footnote 8
On July 13, 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment against an Iranian intelligence officer, Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani, three intelligence assets working for him, and a U.S. resident of Iranian origin for a plot to kidnap Iranian-American journalist and human rights activist Masih Alinejad from Brooklyn to silence her criticisms of the Iranian regime.Footnote 9 The indictment refers to Alinejad as “Victim-1,” but she subsequently identified herself as the target of the plot.Footnote 10 According to the Justice Department, the scheme followed a failed 2018 attempt by Iranian officials to “induce relatives of [Alinejad], who reside in Iran, to invite [her] to travel to a third country, apparently for the purpose of having [her] arrested or detained and transported to Iran for imprisonment.”Footnote 11 The indictment alleges that the defendants used laundered money to acquire private investigation surveillance services under false pretenses, using the surveillance to track Alinejad's residence and associates.Footnote 12 The defendants also researched ways to transport Alinejad out of the United States, including using “military-style speedboats,” and “maritime travel from New York to Venezuela, . . . whose de facto government has friendly relations with the regime in Iran.”Footnote 13 The indictment charged Farahani and the three intelligence assets with conspiracy to kidnap, as well as conspiracy to violate other laws including sanctions on Iran, bank and wire fraud, and money laundering.Footnote 14 The U.S. resident, the only defendant brought into custody, is accused of providing financial services to support the plot rather than directly participating in the kidnapping scheme.Footnote 15
In announcing the indictment, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York asserted that “‘[a]mong this country's most cherished freedoms is the right to speak one's mind without fear of government reprisal,’” and that “‘[a] U.S. citizen living in the United States must be able to advocate for human rights without being targeted by foreign intelligence operatives.’”Footnote 16 The Justice Department warned that “[t]he network that Farahani directs has also targeted victims in other countries, including . . . Canada, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates.”Footnote 17
When asked about the indictment, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated that “we categorically condemn Iran's dangerous and despicable reported plot to kidnap a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil,” and declared Iran's “attempt to silence the voices of those peacefully working to address the situation, both inside of Iran and outside of Iran” to be “appalling.”Footnote 18 In speaking to the press, the target of the plot, Masih Alinejad, said, “‘I knew that this is the nature of the Islamic Republic, you know, kidnapping people, arresting people, torturing people, killing people. But I couldn't believe it that this is going to happen to me in [the] United States of America.’”Footnote 19 After a phone call with Alinejad, Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted that she “has demonstrated tremendous courage,” and he “affirmed that the U.S. will always support the indispensable work of independent journalists around the world” and “won't tolerate efforts to intimidate them or silence their voices.”Footnote 20 The Committee to Protect Journalists denounced the kidnapping plot and said that “‘U.S. authorities must ensure that the perpetrators of this scheme are held to account, and Iran must cease its efforts to harass and harm journalists globally.’”Footnote 21 In September, the United States followed up on the incident by imposing sanctions on the indicted Iranian intelligence official and operatives.Footnote 22
For its part, Iran has denied the allegations. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh characterized “the plot as ‘Hollywood-style scenarios’ and ‘baseless and ridiculous’ accusations unworthy of a response.”Footnote 23 He further stated, “‘[m]aking such an imaginary story is not unlikely by the U.S. Its entire short history is full of assassination, kidnapping and sabotage in other countries.’”Footnote 24
In a second case, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York issued a superseding indictment on July 21, 2021, charging nine individuals with crimes related to their participation in a People's Republic of China (PRC) government “campaign to harass, stalk, and coerce certain residents of the United States to return to [China] as part of a global, concerted, and extralegal repatriation effort known as ‘Operation Fox Hunt.’”Footnote 25 The indictment alleges that “Operation Fox Hunt was a PRC Ministry of Public Security initiative to locate and repatriate alleged Chinese ‘fugitives’ who had fled to foreign countries, including the United States,” but to do so without properly coordinating with the United States.Footnote 26 Instead, the indictment explains, “PRC government officials . . . traveled to the United States and directed non-official operatives . . . to, among other things, surveil and harass their intended targets,” including “threaten[ing] the targets and their families with harm to coerce the targets to return to the PRC.”Footnote 27
The indictment alleges that China previously obtained International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) “red notices” for the targets in this case, alleging that they were wanted in China for, among other things, embezzlement and accepting bribes.Footnote 28 From 2016 to 2019, PRC government officials, including a police officer with the Wuhan Public Security Bureau and a prosecutor with the Hanyang People's Protectorate, traveled to the United States to direct efforts to coerce the targets into returning to China.Footnote 29 In 2017, for example, the defendants allegedly brought the elderly father of one of the targets from China to the United States to deliver a threat that if the target did not return to China, his family there would be harmed.Footnote 30
When some of the defendants were initially charged in October 2020, Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers condemned the operation, noting that “[t]here are many established ways that rule of law abiding nations conduct international law enforcement activity. This certainly isn't one of them.”Footnote 31 He further explained that some of China's targets
may well be wanted on traditional criminal charges and they may even be guilty of what they are charged with. But in many instances the hunted are opponents of Communist Party Chairman Xi—political rivals, dissidents, and critics. And in either event, the operation is a clear violation of the rule of law and international norms.Footnote 32
In announcing the superseding indictment, which added as a defendant the prosecutor with the Hanyang People's Protectorate, U.S. officials denounced China's actions as “‘undemocratic, authoritarian, and contrary to the rule of law,’” and noted that the fact that “‘a prosecutor and police officer not only directed and participated in a criminal scheme on U.S. soil, but then attempted to cover it up, is an affront to justice of the highest order.’”Footnote 33
When asked about the superseding indictment, China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian stated that China follows international law and accused the United States of “smear[ing] Chinese efforts to repatriate corrupt fugitives and recover illegal proceeds.”Footnote 34 He further asserted:
The US has the largest number of Chinese fugitives suspected of corruption and economic crime. In recent years, the US has been inactive in responding to China's requests for cooperation on repatriating fugitives. This is against the spirit of the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and the UN Convention against Corruption. We urge the US to correct its mistakes, actively facilitate China's efforts to repatriate corrupt fugitives and recover illegal proceeds, faithfully fulfill its obligations and commitments, and avoid degenerating into a safe haven for criminals.Footnote 35
In both cases, U.S. law enforcement officials arrested defendants located in the United States, but the foreign government officials and other defendants located in China and Iran remain at large.Footnote 36 Given the nature of the charges and the absence of U.S. extradition treaties with Iran and China, cooperation from their national governments to facilitate prosecution is unlikely.Footnote 37
