We Visited a ‘Secret Chinese Police Station’ in London

LONDON – The nondescript real estate agent’s office on a shabby stretch of north London high road is, at first glance, an unlikely hub of international intrigue.

But Hunter Realty, in Hendon, northwest London, is under intense scrutiny following reports it shares its premises with one of a network of 54 illegal overseas Chinese police “service stations,” allegedly operating in 33 countries spanning five continents. Most are in Europe, with nine in Spain, four in Italy, and three in the UK.

The network was exposed in a report called Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild, released earlier this month by the Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders.

It revealed that public security bureaus in the Chinese cities of Fuzhou and Qingtian had set up dozens of so-called “110 Overseas” offices, in a reference to the Chinese emergency number. Campaigners say the illegal police stations represent a brazen expansion of China’s security apparatus, allowing it to surveil and intimidate Chinese nationals even in foreign countries where it held no jurisdiction.

“This creates tremendous fear among the overseas Chinese community,” Jing-Jie Chen, a Paris-based researcher for Safeguard Defenders, told VICE World News.

“You finally escape an authoritarian regime but you’re still not free still.” 

Chen said the undeclared police “service stations” were a clear violation of sovereignty of the countries where they were operating, and represented a dangerous incursion of China’s police state into free, democratic societies.

Despite the governments of the Netherlands and Ireland saying the undeclared police stations are illegal, Chinese officials have been openly promoting the police service stations to Chinese nationals, while insisting that they are doing nothing wrong.

They have painted the police service stations as a means to tackle transnational crime – especially telecommunications fraud – committed by overseas Chinese, as well as acting as service points to enable Chinese nationals overseas carry out mundane administrative tasks, like renewing their driver licences.

But Safeguard Defenders says they are also being used to carry out “persuasion operations” to pressure Chinese nationals wanted by the state, both political dissidents and criminal suspects, to return home to face punishment – often involving threats against their family members still in China. 

On Tuesday, Dutch media revealed that Wang Jingyu, a dissident refugee in the Netherlands, has received threats and abuse from the police service station in Rotterdam, including a phone call telling him “to go back to China to solve [his] problems,” and to “think about [his] parents.” In response to the revelations, the Dutch government said the secret police stations were illegal, and that it was launching an investigation and would take appropriate action.

Safeguard Defenders has also identified two cases where criminal suspects were “persuaded” to return home from Europe to face charges with the involvement of police service stations: in Madrid, Spain in January 2020, and in Belgrade, Serbia in October 2018. The Chinese government has trumpeted the success of its “persuasion operations,” with the Ministry of Public Security claiming in August it had successfully persuaded 230,000 overseas fraud suspects to return home since April 2021.

Revelations of the network have drawn a swift response from governments. In Ireland, the government ordered the closure of a police station in central Dublin – which even featured a sign advertising its presence as the “Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station.” In the UK, the government has called the claims “very concerning,” with MPs planning a session in Parliament to gather evidence on the issue, while Canadian police have also launched an investigation.

The Hendon real estate office was one of three UK addresses – one an office in the London suburb of Croydon, the other a Cantonese restaurant in Glasgow – included in a list of overseas police service stations released by officials in Fuzhou, which was replicated in the Safeguard Defenders report.

Hunter Realty shares the premises with the law firm New World Law Associates, whose phone number and address match those provided for the Hendon police service station, and whose existence is advertised in a plaque on the wall outside the estate agents. The manager of the law firm is Richard Huang, whose name is given on the Companies House website – the UK register of companies – as Shao Zhong Huang; Huang is also listed on LinkedIn as the manager of Hunter Realty, although Companies House records show him having resigned as director in May.

When VICE World News called the phone number for the reported Chinese police service station in Hendon, which is the same number listed on the website for New World Law Associates, a man answered, immediately hanging up when he was told he was speaking to a reporter.

In response to an emailed request for comment on the allegations, the Chinese Embassy in London said that the so-called police stations were
“in fact overseas Chinese service centres.”

It said that the centres had been opened to help large numbers of Chinese nationals who were stranded overseas by the pandemic to renew driver licences or other tasks. But Chen, of Safeguard Defenders, said the first overseas service centres – which were often linked to overseas Chinese associations which typically had deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party – were set up before the pandemic. Earlier this month, Spanish newspaper El Correo quoted an unnamed Chinese diplomat as acknowledging the “persuasion operations,” saying that bilateral extradition treaties with European countries were “very cumbersome and Europe is reluctant to extradite to China. I don't see what is wrong with pressuring criminals to face justice.”

When VICE World News visited Hunter Realty to investigate further, the only staff member present was unsurprised by the media interest. The man, who gave his name only as Ali, said Richard Huang was his boss, and often had Chinese visitors in his back office in the property. 

He knew nothing about any secret Chinese police service station operating on the site, but said that since the report was released, the business had been visited by a string of reporters, and had also been targeted by activists protesting the Chinese government’s abuses.

“We’ve had people outside protesting about China, and its treatment of Muslims,” he said. “As a Muslim myself, that’s difficult for me.”

Chen, of Safeguard Defenders, said the police service stations were often linked to overseas Chinese associations in the countries they were based, which typically had deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party. 

The issue is just the latest controversy over China’s conduct in Europe after a Hong Kong protester was dragged into the Chinese consulate in Manchester, UK, and beaten up by consular staff earlier this month.

The assault, in which consul-general Zheng Xiyuan was filmed pulling the activist’s hair, was widely condemned, but China has responded defiantly, with Zheng defending his violent response as doing his “duty.” 

On Thursday, the Chinese Embassy in London released a video threatening that sheltering Hong Kong protesters would “bring disaster to Britain,” highlighting the UK’s reliance on China as its third-largest trading partner and leading source of imports.

UPDATE 31/10/2022: This article has been updated with a statement from the Chinese Embassy in London.