An NYPD cop from China was fired by the department for allegedly spying for the CCP, internal disciplinary records show.
Lt. Steven Li was working at the Internal Affairs Bureau when he helped a Chinese national connect with a woman targeted by the Chinese government from between 2019 and 2021, FBI and NYPD investigators alleged.
Chinese national Sun Hoi Ying was in the US to conduct “Operation Fox Hunt,” a program that started in 2014 to repatriate alleged Chinese fugitives, sometimes by bypassing authorities, to face charges in the People’s Republic of China, according to the documents.
Li allegedly set up meetings for Ying in the city with the woman, who was identified as “Huang” in the documents. She was accused in China of embezzling money from a Chinese state-owned company before moving to the US in 2001.
The following year the Communist Party of China accused her of using the stolen money to buy various properties in China. The Communist Party of China seized the properties, which were the subject of an ongoing dispute for several years, the documents show.
Ying was dispatched to the US to allegedly pressure the woman to settle the dispute. Li met with the woman multiple times and communicated with Sun. Investigators looked at whether he was acting as an agent of the PRC and whether he pressured the woman.
Li denied he was acting as an agent and said he had made it clear to the victim, whom he knew from community events and occasionally had dinner with, that he was a police officer and that he didn’t represent Sun or the Chinese government, according to the NYPD Order of Dismissal.
“The thought was that since (Li) was a police officer, a position held in high esteem in the Chinese community,” according to the document, “the woman would be more amenable to discussing her case with Sun as him as her intermediary.”
All three met in a Queens restaurant on Dec. 1, 2019. Li claimed he made introductions but left the room “as the two of them talked about the dispute,” according to the NYPD paperwork.
At one point, Li texted an unidentified person on WeChat to report the targeted woman appeared to be “a little bit emotional.”
Sun also sent passport photos to Li asking that he do checks on them, but there was no evidence the cop ran their names at the NYPD.
He was also accused of making false statements to the FBI during interviews and of not notifying the NYPD of the investigation for two years.
Li hasn’t been criminally charged.
The department concluded he didn’t pressure anyone and was not acting as a Chinese agent. But the NYPD did find him guilty during a department trial of making false statements and failing to report the FBI probe.
He was fired on Feb. 16, according to records first discovered by Documented.
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