Two suspected Chinese agents were recently indicted for attempting to bribe a public official with tens of thousands of dollars in a scheme targeting the persecuted faith group Falun Gong in the United States.
John Chen, a 70-year-old U.S. citizen born in China, and Lin Feng, a Chinese citizen aged 43, were trying to get a Falun Gong-run entity stripped of its tax-exempt status, court filings state.
The pair met with what turned out to be an undercover agent posing as an IRS official and promised to pay a total of $50,000. Chen gave the agent $1,000 in cash, as an initial payment on May 14. Four days later, Feng gave the undercover agent another $4,000 in cash at the John F. Kennedy International Airport.