NEWS – “without comment”
Operation Fox Hunt: How China Exports Repression Using a Network of Spies Hidden in Plain Sight by Sebastian Rotella and Kirsten Berg July 22, 2021
China sends covert teams abroad to bring back people accused — justifiably or not — of financial crimes.
One New Jersey family was stalked as part of a global campaign that takes families hostage and pressures immigrants to serve as spies.
But it underscored something more troubling: the extent to which China is brazenly persecuting Chinese people around the world, defying other nations’ laws and borders with impunity. And it illuminated a little-known cloak-and-dagger battle between Chinese operatives and American agents on U.S. soil amid growing tensions between the two countries.
As part of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, in 2015 China released this list of its 100 most wanted fugitives sought for economic crimes. The names on the list were targets of Operation Fox Hunt, a global fugitive-apprehension program launched in 2014, and a related program called Operation Sky Net. This photo spread appeared in the Chinese Communist Party’s English-language newspaper, China Daily.
Launched in 2014, Operation Fox Hunt and a program called Operation Sky Net claim to have caught more than 8,000 international fugitives. The targets are not murderers or drug lords, but Chinese public officials and business people accused — justifiably and not — of financial crimes. Some of them have set up high-rolling lives overseas with lush mansions and millions in offshore accounts. But others are dissidents, whistle-blowers or relatively minor figures swept up in provincial conflicts.
Investigative Reporters:
Sebastian Rotella:
Sebastian Rotella is a reporter at ProPublica. An award-winning foreign correspondent and investigative reporter, Sebastian’s coverage includes terrorism, intelligence and organized crime.
Sebastian.Rotella@propublica.org
Kirsten Berg:
Kirsten Berg is a research reporter with ProPublica.
Very interesting, and troubling article – recommended