Boston man charged with spying on Chinese dissidents in U.S.

A Boston-area man arrested last week has been accused of spying on Chinese dissidents on behalf of the country’s ruling communist party, according to prosecutors.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced that 63-year-old Litang Liang, of Brighton, was charged with one count of acting as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general and one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the attorney general.

Mr. Liang is accused of surveilling Chinese dissidents in the Boston area and relaying information back to the Chinese government between 2018 through 2022.

He is also accused of organizing counter-protests against pro-democracy dissidents and identifying prospects for the PRC’s law enforcement arm, the Ministry of Public Security.

“This case demonstrates, once again, the lengths that the PRC government, including its Ministry of Public Security, will go to target people in the U.S. who exercise their rights to speak out against the PRC,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen, who works in the DOJ’s National Security Division, said in a press release.

Mr. Liang spied on Chinese family associations and community organizations that had pro-Taiwan leanings, according to prosecutors.

He is also accused of taking photos of a person who “sabotaged” PRC flags in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood in October 2018.

Further, he recorded a dissident at a “Boston Stands with Hong Kong” march in August 2019 and took photos of anti-PRC dissidents who were demonstrating outside of the Boston Public Library in September 2019.

All of the documentation Mr. Liang is accused of compiling was sent to either the PRC, the Ministry of Public Safety or the United Front Work Department, which reports directly to the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr. Liang was released Thursday on a $25,000 bond. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.