Retired NYPD police officer convicted of stalking a family in New Jersey on behalf of the Chinese government

Three men have been convicted of stalking a family in New Jersey on behalf of the Chinese government.

Michael McMahon, a retired NYPD sergeant, Zhu Yong, 66, and Zheng Congying, 27, both Chinese nationals, were found guilty of stalking and a related conspiracy charge in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Yong and McMahon, 55, were also found guilty of acting as unregistered foreign agents, and Yong was convicted of a second conspiracy charge.

Each of the men played a role in Operation Fox Hunt – a campaign the Justice Department says is part of the Communist Party’s effort to control Chinese nationals around the world.

All three men worked to track down dissidents who had fled China and intimidate them into returning.

Yong (right) and McMahon were also found guilty of acting as unregistered foreign agents. Zheng Congying (left) raised his thumb out of bounds

The case is the first the Justice Department has prosecuted to challenge the operation, with charges against the three men announced in 2020.

Xu Jin, a former Chinese government official who moved to the US more than a decade ago, was the target of the plot organized by government officials.

Jin appeared on China’s most wanted list in 2015 and was accused of taking bribes, but the US case did not address his alleged crimes in Beijing.

Communication between the men began in 2016 when Yong contacted McMahon, who had worked as a private investigator.

McMahon’s lawyer claims he thought Yong was working for a private company to make money back.

He then conducted surveillance for five days, spread over six months, in 2016 and 2017, exposing records of Jin’s whereabouts.

Court documents say McMahon was using unauthorized police contacts to find Ji’s address, vehicle registration certificate, social security number, bank account and foreign travel details and pass them on to Chinese agents.

Prosecutors say the days McMahon was hired coincided with Jin’s 82-year-old father taking a trip to see his son in an attempt to get him to return to China.

Beijing authorities forced the elderly man to make the journey and had previously jailed Jin’s sister because her brother had refused to come home.

The officials reportedly did not know Jin’s address and used the meeting with his father to lure him out to track down his whereabouts.

Chinese agents guarded and harassed Ji’s daughter in California and sent a video of Ji’s mother and sister crying and distraught, hoping to intimidate him into returning.

The former agent also met Hu Ji, an associate of Yong, a police officer at the Public Security Bureau in Wuhan, China.

All three met in October 2016 at a Panera Bread restaurant, with a photo showing McMahon grinning and putting his arm around Yong.

In 2018, Congying traveled to the man’s home in New Jersey and taped a note to his door that read, “If you are willing to go back to your homeland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be safe and well. ‘

Congying’s lawyer, Paul Goldberger, said his client was “just a kid” who had driven to the house as a favor to Yong, and that he immediately regretted his actions.

McMahon claimed he thought he was working for a Chinese construction company and says the fact that he informed authorities about his work proves it.

All three denied the allegations and claimed to have no idea they worked for the Chinese government.

“I did everything by the book,” McMahon said outside the courtroom. “This is outrageous. What happened? Absolutely outrageous.’

The defendants will be sentenced at a later date and could face decades in prison for the charges.

A jury deliberated the charges for two days and was adjourned after a juror reported receiving anti-Chinese communist party literature.

It is unclear if this was the target, and she was allowed to return to the pool where discussions continued.