Chinese NYPD officer fired for trying to aid Chinese Communist Party: Document

Metro

by Tina Moore

A China-born officer was fired from the NYPD on suspicion of spying for the Chinese Communist Party, according to internal disciplinary records from the police department.

FBI and NYPD investigators allege that while he worked for the Bureau of Internal Affairs and Communications, Lt. Steven Lee helped a Chinese national contact a woman who was targeted by the Chinese government between 2019 and 2021.

According to the documents, Sun Haiying, a Chinese national, was in the United States to carry out Operation Fox Hunt, which began in 2014 to repatriate Chinese fugitive suspects, sometimes circumventing Chinese authorities, to face prosecution in the People’s Republic of China.

Li allegedly arranged a meeting in the city with Ying, a woman identified in the documents as “Huang,” who had been accused in China of embezzling from a Chinese state-owned enterprise before moving to the United States in 2001.

The following year, the Chinese Communist Party accused her of using the stolen money to buy various properties across China, and documents show the party seized the properties that had been the subject of dispute for years.

Ying was allegedly sent to the US to pressure the woman to resolve the dispute. Li met with her multiple times and was in contact with Sun. Investigators are looking into whether Li acted as an agent of China and pressured the woman.

According to the NYPD’s termination order, Li denied acting as an agent and said he made it clear to the victim, who he met at community events and occasionally had dinner with, that he was a police officer and did not represent Sun or the Chinese government.

“Because Mr Li is a police officer, a highly respected position in the Chinese community, he believed that by using Mr Sun as an intermediary, the woman would be more willing to discuss her case,” the document said.

The three met at a restaurant in Queens on Dec. 1, 2019. NYPD documents claim Lee made the introduction but left the room when “the two were discussing an altercation.”

At one point, Li sent a text message to an unidentified person on WeChat reporting that the female target seemed “a bit emotional.”

Sun also sent passport photos to Lee to verify them, but there was no evidence that officers had looked up their names with the NYPD.

He was also accused of making false statements during FBI investigations and failing to report the investigation to the NYPD for two years.

Li has not been criminally charged.

The NYPD concluded that he had not pressured anyone or acted as a Chinese agent, but the NYPD found him guilty of making false statements and failing to report an FBI investigation at his own trial.

He was fired on Feb. 16, according to records first discovered by Documented.

.