Former NYPD Sergeant Convicted of Taking Money from China to Stalk NJ Residents

Michael McMahon, a 55-year-old former New York City police sergeant who later worked as a private investigator, was convicted on Tuesday of stalking a New Jersey family while acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese Communist government.

McMahon was convicted of participating in a Chinese program called “Operation Fox Hunt,” intended to forcibly repatriate fugitives living overseas. The regime in Beijing claimed it was hunting down fugitives from justice, most of them facing “corruption” charges back home, while the U.S. government said the program targeted political dissidents. 

Whatever the goals of Operation Fox Hunt, its methods are clearly frowned upon under American law. McMahon was accused of working as a Chinese agent to maintain surveillance on a New Jersey resident named Xu Jin as part of a conspiracy to force Xu and his wife to return to China to face “corruption-related charges.”

According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), McMahon was hired by Chinese operative Zhu Yong to obtain “detailed information” about Xu, his wife, and his daughter from “law enforcement databases and other government databases.”

McMahon also conducted surveillance operations on Xu’s sister-in-law.

When Chinese Communist operatives decided to lure Xu into a meeting by dragging his 82-year-old father from China to New Jersey, McMahon followed Xu home and provided his employers with the man’s address.

McMahon’s employers subsequently tried to break into the victim’s home. When the attempt failed, they left behind a note that read: “If you are willing to go back to the mainland and spend ten years in prison, your wife and children will be all right. That’s the end of this matter!”

“Before I saw this, I felt that the threats from the Chinese Communist Party was only a mental threat to me. When I saw that note, I realized that it had become a physical threat,” Xu testified in court when explaining why he contacted the FBI. 

The DOJ said McMahon knew exactly what kind of nefarious activity he was involved with, having emailed himself a Chinese state media article that celebrated Operation Fox Hunt and provided photos of its targets, including the couple McMahon was stalking in New Jersey.

McMahon claimed he thought he was doing legitimate work to recover embezzled funds rather than working for the tyrannical Chinese government. Prosecutors scoffed at that notion, pointing out that he was once paid directly by a Chinese official at a Panera restaurant in Paramus, New Jersey.

“No person doing legitimate business is handed a five-thousand-dollar wad of cash in a Panera Bread,” prosecutor Meredith Arfa deadpanned.

McMahon was convicted, along with the man who hired him, Zhu Yong, and another defendant named Zheng Congying, who allegedly posted the threatening note on the Xu family’s front door. McMahon faces up to 20 years in prison, while Zhu and Zheng could serve 25 and ten years, respectively.

U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace said:

The jury’s verdict confirms that defendants McMahon and Zhu knowingly acted at the direction of a hostile foreign state to harass, intimidate and attempt to cause the involuntary return of a resident of the New York metropolitan area to the People’s Republic of China, and that defendant Zheng harassed and intimidated that same person and his family.

“It is particularly troubling that defendant Michael McMahon, a former sergeant in the New York City Police Department, engaged in surveillance, harassment, and stalking on behalf of a foreign power for money,” Peace said.

FBI Special Agent in Charge James E. Dennehy said:

We hope this verdict serves as a message to other operatives in the United States working right now at the behest of the People’s Republic of China in its effort to silence those who speak out against it. The FBI and our law enforcement partners are watching, and we are taking action to stop the stalking, threatening, and repressing of dissidents.

Dennehy said private investigators should be on notice that they will “face consequences if they wittingly ignore the warning signs that they may be part of a larger plot to illegally harass and coerce people by a foreign power.”

The Chinese embassy in Washington denounced the verdict, insisting that recovering fugitives from justice is a “just cause” and urging the U.S. government to cooperate in the future.

“The U.S. turns a blind eye to basic facts and smears Chinese efforts to repatriate corrupt fugitives and recover illegal proceeds,” said embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu — parroting word-for-word the statement issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry when Operation Fox Hunt was first exposed three years ago.

China is currently embroiled in a massive international scandal regarding shadow “police stations” it established in cities across the free world to keep tabs on dissidents and ensure Chinese nationals living overseas remain obedient to the Chinese Communist Party. The Canadian opposition accuses Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of not doing enough to prevent Beijing from running such operations on Canadian soil.

Related: China Operates Police Stations in the US, FBI Chief Admits

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