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Iranwire – The FBI has warned that authoritarian regimes such as in China and Iran are becoming increasingly brazen in their attempts to silence dissidents in the United States.
In a news briefing with reporters on April 19, FBI counterintelligence officials raised alarm about what they described as an “inflection point” in these regimes seeking to engage in “transnational repression” in the United States and other countries.
The officials urged members of dissident or diaspora communities who may have experienced harassment or intimidation to contact the FBI.
They pointed to a growing trend where officials in China and Iran have used private investigators inside the United States to spy on some of their countries’ most vocal critics.
Officials said the goals of transnational repression schemes at times aim to influence US policy decisions through “malign influence tactics.”
“We’ve really seen an inflection point in the tactics and tools, and the level of risk and the level of threat that have changed over the past few years,” one FBI counterintelligence official said.
The call with reporters came two days after two New York residents were arrested for allegedly operating a Chinese “secret police station” in Chinatown district for the purpose of repressing dissidents living in the United States on behalf of China’s government.
Earlier this year, the Justice Department charged three men in an alleged murder-for-hire plot targeting Masih Alinejad, an Iranian American journalist and vocal critic of the Islamic Republic.
US prosecutors last year exposed what they said was an Iranian plot to kidnap Alinejad that had utilized the services of a network of private investigators in the United States.
