WORLDWIDE SHADOW POLICE: Beijing's transnational harassment apparatus had a rough week in a variety of jurisdictions. A London jury convicted two men of running what prosecutors called "shadow policing" operations against Hong Kong dissidents on British soil. A Reuters report says the men are believed to be the first people convicted of spying for China in Britain. A retired Hong Kong police superintendent and an active UK Border Force officer were on convicted Thursday of surveilling pro-democracy activists and senior British political figures on Beijing's behalf, referring to their targets in messages as "cockroaches." The Border Force Officer was said to have used his work database access to query the Home Office's immigration records on dissident targets. The two face up to 14 years in jail. Beijing called the convictions "a typical political stunt" with "no factual basis." The London case has a New York City analog that we recently told you about where a man is on trial accused of running a shadow police station that Beijing would have you believe was a ping-pong parlor.
ETERNAL JOY, TEMPORARY COVER? A six-story building in Manhattan's Chinatown, wedged between a hotel, a spa, and a coffee shop, went on trial Wednesday - or rather, the man accused of running it did. Prosecutors say Lu Jianwang's storefront was a Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station, tasked with silencing, harassing, and intimidating pro-democracy dissidents on behalf of Beijing. The defense had a simpler explanation, saying the store was just a place where Chinese diaspora members could renew their driver's licenses remotely and play ping-pong and mahjong. Defense attorney John Carman told jurors that Lu "was arrested for essentially failing to file a form" specifically, the Foreign Agents Registration Act form. You know, the one you are supposed to submit if you are lobbying for a foreign government (or when running a clandestine foreign police station on U.S. soil). Lu, who goes by the name Harry Lu, admitted that he kept in touch with a handler via WeChat but says he deleted the messages, which is, admittedly, a thing you do when you're worried someone might misinterpret ping-pong scores. The community organization sharing office space with the outpost was called the “America ChangLe Association.” ChangLe means "eternal joy.”
THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT: A report released Monday by DHS's inspector general found that 76 percent of apps on smartphones issued to intelligence office staff were either banned, posed security risks, or allowed prohibited activities, including online gaming, private web browsing, and apps "associated with foreign adversaries." And the problem could be worse. The department was tracking records for only 11 percent of the devices it had issued. Additionally, NOTUS notes that apps developed by the DHS Office of Intelligence Analysis “were widely shared on public app stores with first responders and downloaded 375,000 times” and these apps also had security vulnerabilities of their own. Not that it offers any security, but we suppose the good news is that foreign adversaries trying to penetrate DHS smartphones will have to compete with Candy Crush for bandwidth.
REMEMBER US? For decades, the State Department has marked Foreign Service Day, the first Friday of May, with a solemn ceremony before the memorial plaques in its C Street lobby honoring diplomats who died in the line of duty. This year, according to the American Foreign Service Association, the department simply didn't bother. No ceremony. No explanation. AFSA held its own memorial at its headquarters instead, honoring the 323 names on a wall a few blocks away in Foggy Bottom. This week, State finalized the layoff of nearly 250 Foreign Service officers, including crisis responders and officers with rare language skills, while simultaneously running a recruitment campaign to hire new ones.
UNSURE ABOUT THAT ASSESSMENT: Reuters has an exclusive get, reporting that U.S. intelligence agencies have been tasked by senior administration officials with assessing how Iran would respond if President Trump simply declared unilateral victory in the two-month-old war and ended it. The assignment was said to be partly driven by concern that a grinding conflict could cost Republicans at the midterms. This would presumably be a different declaration of victory than the several Trump has already issued. Reuters says that the IC ran this same exercise in February and concluded that Iran would likely interpret a U.S. victory declaration and drawdown as a win for Tehran. After this story was first published, a CIA spokesperson said the Agency was "not familiar" with the reported assessment.
DOMINO EFFECT IN THE STRAIT? USN WANTS AI TO STOP IRANIAN MINES FROM TOPPLING GLOBAL OIL MARKETS: The U.S. Navy reportedly is embracing AI to help clear the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian mines. Reuters reports that the Pentagon just handed what could be - up to a $100 million contract to San Francisco-based AI firm “Domino Data Lab” - to help hunt Iranian mines in the Strait of Hormuz before they take down the global economy like, well, dominoes. The Navy's Project AMMO (yes, that's the actual name) uses underwater drones that previously took up to six months to retrain on new mine types. Domino says it can do it in days. We’re watching.
TANKS FOR THE MEMORIES: The Associated Press reports that the annual World War II victory day parade in Moscow on May 9 of this year – will be missing tanks. And also missiles and other military hardware. The Red Square extravaganza will reportedly break from tradition of parading the military equipment in a show of strength because of the “current operational situation” which may be Russian for: “Ukraine.” The show will go on though and is expected to feature cadets and marching units. .
SHARING IS CARING – We’re just a little confused about the new ground rules around posting things on social media sites that might be interpreted by some as encouraging political violence of some kind. This, after prosecutors at the Department of Justice charged former FBI leader James Comey for posting (and later deleting) an image of seashells arranged in the numbers ‘86 47’. Some (prosecutors) thought that meant that Comey was suggesting harming the president - apparently they were relying on how the mob uses the term ‘86’. Who are we to judge? But we did want some additional expert interpretation - so we reached out to none other than Food & Wine Magazine for a better sense of how people in the hospitality industry actually use the number 86. Turns out, ‘86’ means that a restaurant is out of something or it can also be used to describe a patron who is not welcome in the establishment. (Maybe that’s how the mob came up with the term since we hear they like Italian food and all). We’re confused because a Dead Drop reader recently brought to our attention that back in 2024, then-candidate Trump shared a video on social media that showed a pickup truck flying Trump flags and had an image of a hog-tied Joe Biden on the truck. Now, that just doesn’t sound very nice. We’re sure the social media police will look into it.Got news to share? Drop us a note: Editor@thecipherbrief.comRead more expert-driven national security insights exclusively in www.thecipherbrief.com.
