Philippines Raids Chinese-Run Scam Center, Stepping Up Crackdown

Philippine authorities arrested more than 400 individuals during a raid of what they said was a Chinese-run offshore gaming operator in Manila, as the Southeast Asian nation intensifies its crackdown on scam centers.
Authorities nabbed 307 Filipinos, 137 Chinese, three Vietnamese, two Thais, two Malaysians, an Indonesian and a Taiwanese, the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission said in a statement late on Thursday.

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American Military News

10 hours ago

• American Military News

Veteran Chinese dissident faces ongoing police harassment despite prison release

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission. Three months after his prison release, veteran dissident Chen Yunfei is in the cross-hairs of police over his social media posts and has faced multiple rounds of questioning and harassment amid ongoing surveillance, Radio Free Asia has learned. The Chengdu-based human rights activist and Chinese performance artist was released on March 24 after serving a four-year prison sentence in the southwestern province of Sichuan. But his friends say his freedom has been largely illusory, as police have repeatedly summoned him for interrogations and severely restricted his movements and ability to resume work. Chen has faced repeated persecution for his criticism of the Chinese Communist Party and commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen protests, including demands that the government investigate the crackdown and compensate victims. In 2021, he was sentenced to four years in jail on of child molestation which he denied and said were intended to smear his reputation. Most recently, on the eve of the 36th anniversary of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square protests crackdown, the National Security Bureau and local police subjected Chen to a five-hour interrogation, where he was forced to sit on the 'tiger bench,' Chen's friend and colleague Guan told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. 'Tiger bench' is a form of torture used to restrain and immobilize detainees during questioning. Chen, like many others RFA interviewed for this story, asked to be identified only by a single name for fear of reprisals. 'The police accused him of 'picking quarrels and provoking trouble,'' said Guan, referring to a criminal charge frequently used by Chinese authorities to carry out arbitrary detentions against rights activists and dissidents. The charges were based on Chen's social media activity, including reposts of tweets by Ming Chu-cheng, an honorary professor of politics at National Taiwan University, and prominent dissidents Pastor Wang Yi, the pastor of a banned Protestant church in Chengdu, and citizen journalist Cai Chu, said Guan. Despite the lack of a subpoena, the police summoned Chen for questioning, confiscating his mobile phone and Wi-Fi equipment for three days, before returning them on June 3 night after repeated protests, Guan said. Chen's livelihood has also been impacted, his friends said. Upon release from prison, Chen found that his nursery business, which he had operated for many years, was emptied of all assets, causing him to lose his source of income, said Yang, another friend of the activist. The courts have also listed him as a 'dishonest debtor,' preventing him from accessing his bank accounts or resuming work, Yang said. 'He now has difficulty even renting a house and can only survive on donations from friends and through loans,' said Fang Liang, another friend of Chen's. During Chen's most recent imprisonment, his 91-year-old mother was also forcibly and violently removed from her Chengdu rental home by community workers, during which she suffered a head injury that required over a month of hospitalization, Guan said. During the forced eviction, many of the family's assets of value disappeared, including $30,000 of pension money that his mother had set aside for her granddaughter's education abroad, $5,800 in cash, and about 40,000 yuan (or US$5,560) in Chinese currency, Guan said. When Chen attempted to file a police report after discovering his empty home upon release, authorities refused to issue a receipt or open an investigation, said Yang. 'They don't allow you to have any evidence to sue them,' said Yang. 'The government said it's not their responsibility, and the police said to contact the community — they just pushed the matter back and forth.' Despite the ongoing harassment, Chen's friends say he is preparing to file a civil lawsuit to recover his mother's lost property and challenge the police's abuse of power. Shandong-based legal scholar Lu described Chen's ongoing troubles as a consequence of a typical 'secondary punishment' model that is designed to maintain control over dissidents through non-judicial means. 'Administrative review is inactive, the police deliberately do not issue receipts, and elderly mothers are forced to become homeless,' Lue said 'This is not law enforcement, but political coercion.'

Newsweek

13 hours ago

• Newsweek

China's Fungus—A Biological Weapons Attack on America's Food Supply?

Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. This month, three Chinese nationals were charged with smuggling biological agents into the United States. The attempts could be part of a biological weapons attack on America's farms and ranches. On June 3, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan announced that Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, had been charged with conspiracy, smuggling, false statements, and visa fraud. Jian was arrested for smuggling Fusarium graminearum, a "potential agroterrorism weapon" that causes "head blight." The fungal disease hits wheat, barley, maize, and rice and "is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year." In humans and livestock, head blight causes vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects. A tractor and planting implement creates a dust cloud while planting a wheat field in the fertile farm fields of Idaho. A tractor and planting implement creates a dust cloud while planting a wheat field in the fertile farm fields of Idaho. Getty Images Their actions, according to U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon, Jr., represented "the gravest national security concerns." Cheyvoryea Gibson, special agent in charge of the FBI's Detroit Field Office, said the pathogens "posed an imminent threat to public safety." Then on June 9, Michigan's Eastern District announced that it had charged Chinese citizen Chengxuan Han with smuggling "biological materials" and making false statements. The materials, it appears, related to round worms. So why were Jian, Liu, and Han importing pathogens? "Fusarium graminearum is a common pathogen affecting crops in China, and numerous Chinese research institutes, including the Institute of Rice Biology at Zhejiang University, have been actively studying it," Xiaoxu Sean Lin, a former lab director of the viral disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, told Newsweek. "The FBI confiscated samples labeled 'ARP9,' an actin-related gene known to influence chromatin remodeling and gene transcription. This suggests the samples were genetically modified strains of Fusarium graminearum." "This raises a critical biosafety question," Lin noted. "Were these modified strains designed to enhance infectivity or pesticide resistance?" The pair may have intended, Lin said, "to perform field testing with these modified fungal strains on university-owned agricultural land." And perhaps they were intending to develop one or more modified strains of head blight to be introduced on farmland or ranchland elsewhere. Zunyong Liu was affiliated with Zhejiang University, where he conducted research on Fusarium graminearum. That institution, Lin said, has a well-documented collaboration with the People's Liberation Army. As he pointed out, "China's military-civil fusion strategy makes it reasonable to speculate about military interest in these genetically modified pathogens, which are potentially related to biological warfare or agroterrorism." Lin said research on such organisms would require special permits from both the University of Michigan and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Jian and Liu, as experienced researchers, would have known that. "If the intent was purely academic," Lin asked, "why did the researchers not pursue the legal, regulated channels for pathogen transfer?" The fact that Yunqing Jian and Zunyong Liu would risk their careers by smuggling a known pathogen is a factor suggesting malign intent, especially given their relations with the Communist Party—Jian is a member—and their probable connections with military research at their home institutions in China. U.S. Attorney Gorgon said Chengxuan Han's smuggling was part of "an alarming pattern." Brandon Weichert, author of Biohacked: China's Race to Control Life, agreed, telling Newsweek, "The twin incidents are unlikely to be coincidental and certainly part of a troubling series of pathogen transfers to and from Chinese research institutions in recent years." Lin believed Han's affiliation with Huazhong University of Science and Technology is a warning sign because that institution is also involved in military-civil fusion programs. "Questions about PLA involvement are warranted," Lin said. "Biological warfare is a strategic 'commanding height' in Chinese military doctrine." As Weichert told this publication, "These agents can be weapons of mass destruction and their introduction into the United States could very well have been preparation for a biological weapons attack." The Chinese attempts this year to smuggle pathogens may be only the latest incidents in a Chinese campaign to bring down American agriculture. China, I believe, has been trying to plant invasive species in America since at least 2020. That year, Americans in all 50 states received seeds unsolicited from China. Early this year, Temu, the online Chinese retailer, was caught sending seeds to the U.S. unsolicited. In one case, a Chinese party sent unsolicited both seeds and an unidentified liquid. "We can expect many more attempts at sabotaging our food supply both to damage our economy and cause chaos," Weichert said. Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America and The Coming Collapse of China. Follow him on X @GordonGChang. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

Los Angeles Times

a day ago

• Los Angeles Times

A Chinese Ph.D. student is sentenced to at least 24 years in prison for raping multiple women

LONDON — A British judge on Thursday sentenced a Chinese Ph.D. student to a minimum of 24 years in prison for drugging and raping 10 women in England and China. Zhenhao Zou, 28, was convicted of the attacks, which took place between 2019 and 2023, during a four-week trial earlier this year at Inner London Crown Court. Judge Rosina Cottage on Thursday described Zou as 'very bright young man' who used a manipulative 'charming mask' to hide that he is a 'sexual predator.' Zou was studying for a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at University College London in 2023 when the first woman came forward to allege that he had raped her. As part of the investigation, police seized Zou's phone, on which they found videos of him raping unconscious women. A search of his apartment in south London turned up sedatives and recording equipment. The investigation into Zou's crimes continues, and at least 24 women have come forward with new allegations as a result of the publicity surrounding his trial, London's Metropolitan Police Service said. Taken together, the cases would make him one of the worst sex offenders in U.K. history. Zou, who also used the name Pakho online, befriended fellow students of Chinese heritage on dating apps and WeChat, before inviting them for drinks and drugging them at his apartments in London or an unknown location in China. Using hidden or handheld cameras, Zou filmed nine of the attacks as 'souvenirs,' and he kept a 'trophy box' of his victims' belongings, according to evidence presented at trial. Zou, who claimed the encounters were consensual, was also convicted of three counts of voyeurism, 10 of possessing an extreme pornographic image, one of false imprisonment and three of possessing a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence. He was handed a life sentence and must serve a minimum of 24 years in prison. Prosecutor Saira Pike praised the victims who came forward to report Zou's 'horrific crimes.' 'They have been incredibly strong and brave,' Pike said. 'There is no doubt that their evidence helped us to secure his conviction, and the life sentence handed to him today.' Kirka writes for the Associated Press.