A China-based employee of a US telecommunications company was charged in federal court in Brooklyn on December 18 with conspiracy to commit interstate harassment and unlawful conspiracy to transfer a means of identification. Xinjiang Jin, also known as Julien Jin, is charged with scheming to disrupt numerous meetings in May and June 2020 that commemorated the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in the People's Republic of China. Jin, who is not in custody, is living in China.
The unnamed US company conducted live video conferencing meetings created by employees living in the Eastern District of New York with employees in China. Unconfirmed reports name the company as global giant Zoom.
The complaint and arrest warrant were unsealed in a Brooklyn court after the FBI Washington Field Office investigated the case, handing the case over to the Office of National Security and Cybercrime Section. The complaint alleges insider threats to US companies working in China, with freedom of speech for Americans at risk.
Jin was the primary liaison between the US tech company and China’s intelligence services and law enforcement offices. Jin is accused of working behind the scenes to silence the political and religious US company’s users and employees, including video conference meetings.
Court papers state Jin “regularly responded to requests from the PRC government for information and to terminate video meetings hosted on Company-1’s video communications platform.”
Jin is accused of terminating at least four company video meetings while also sharing internet protocol addresses, names, and email addresses of users outside of China.
The virtual meetings, attended mostly by US citizens, were held by the US company to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Chinese soldiers killed an unknown number of unarmed protesters, many of whom were students, with assault rifles and tanks.
In court papers, Jin is accused of creating false evidence, including fake email addresses, faked photos of dissidents, and information about real dissidents, to lead Chinese officials to deem the meetings illegal. Court papers charge Jin created fake “evidence that the hosts of and participants in the meetings to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre were supporting terrorist organizations, inciting violence or distributing child pornography.”
In a strongly-worded statement, John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, said executives in China are often used for nefarious purposes while working for US companies.
“No company with significant business interests in China is immune from the coercive power of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Demers. “The Chinese Communist Party will use those within its reach to sap the tree of liberty, stifling free speech in China, the United States and elsewhere about the Party’s repression of the Chinese people. For companies with operations in China, like that here, this reality may mean executives being coopted to further repressive activity at odds with the values that have allowed that company to flourish here.”
The DOJ said Jin, 39, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted on conspiracy charges to commit interstate harassment and unlawful conspiracy to transfer a means of identification.
