Los Angeles: The mayor of Arcadia, a city in the state of California, US, is allegedly a Chinese agent, as per the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The agency said on Monday that Eileen Wang has been charged in a federal court for acting as an illegal agent of China.
Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun allegedly worked on the direction and control of Chinese government officials and coordinated with US-based individuals to promote China’s interests through several things such as promoting pro-China propaganda in the United States via US News Center. She did this from late 2020 to 2022, the FBI said, as reported by ANI.
The US News Center is “a website that purported to be a news source for the local Chinese American community, and they received and executed directives from PRC government officials to post pro-PRC content on the website,” the FBI claimed.
Wang (58) has apparently agreed to plead guilty to the felony count, which comes with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
A press statement by the Department of Justice says that she is expected to make her initial appearance in the US District Court in downtown Los Angeles and plead guilty in the coming weeks.
Wang was elected in November 2022 to the Arcadia City Council, a five-person governing body from which the mayor is selected on a rotating basis.
According to the Department of Justice, a PRC official contacted Wang and other individuals via the WeChat encrypted messaging application with pre-written news articles in June 2021.
Assistant attorney general for national security John A Eisenberg called it “deeply concerning” how a person who previously executed directives of PRC government officials was in a position of public trust.
“Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy,” First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California said, adding: “This plea agreement is the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions.”
This must serve as a clear warning that individuals who act on behalf of foreign governments to influence America’s democracy will be identified, investigated, and brought to justice, FBI’s assistant director Roman Rozhavsky said.
The agency’s director Kash Patel assured that federal partners continue to move aggressively to root out this kind of influence in American institutions all over the country.
The official website of the city of Arcadia said that Wang has resigned from the Arcadia City Council, vacating her position as Mayor.
