China’s President Xi Jinping’s government has set up “overseas police stations” in Nigeria to keep track of its citizens abroad.
The Chinese government established police stations in Nigeria and over 20 other countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa, in what could be seen as a massive campaign to combat the growing cases of fraud and telecommunication crimes by Chinese nationals living abroad.
This is contained in an investigative report titled, ‘110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild’.
The Chinese Police Station known as ‘Service Station’ is located in Benin City in Nigeria and in two other countries in Africa including Maseru in Lesotho, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
Others include 35 service stations in 16 European countries, 10 service stations in six American countries and five service stations in five Asian countries.
According to an investigation report by Safeguard Defender, the Chinese authorities claimed that from April 2021 to July 2022, 230,000 nationals had been “persuaded to return” to face criminal proceedings in China.
The report noted that the Chinese government developed and established the overseas Chinese police “service stations” and national police emergency phone numbers through the campaign which started in 2018.
The report quoted the Minqing County Procuratorate, Fujian, Li Riqin, as saying, “The procuratorial work involving overseas Chinese is long-term.
“The procuratorial and overseas Chinese should cooperate closely and strengthen interaction to normalize the mechanisms such as information exchange, legal publicity, joint visits and joint meetings.
“They should give full play to the ‘four major procuratorial’ functions of the procuratorial organs in criminal, civil, administrative and public interest litigation.”
“Through the establishment of overseas service centers, Qingtian County Police has made breakthroughs in its overseas pursuit of fugitives.
“Since 2018, the Qingtian police have detected and solved six criminal cases related to overseas Chinese, successfully arrested a red notice fugitive, and persuaded two suspects to surrender under the assistance from the Overseas centers,” the report stated.
According to the investigative report, China has designated nine countries as having serious fraud, telecom fraud and web crimes, and Chinese nationals are no longer allowed to stay in those countries without “good reason.”
The “Overseas Police Service Stations” are being used in these operations on five continents, often using local “Chinese Overseas Home Associations” linked to the CCP’s United Front Work, and these operations eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperation and violate the international rule of law, and may violate the territorial integrity of third countries involved in setting up a parallel policing mechanism using illegal methods, the report stated.
