The group, which is part of China’s Homeland Security Agency, has created thousands of fake social media profiles, including Twitter and Facebook, to harass Chinese dissidents in the US.

Chinese Troll Factory

Judging by the screenshots released by the Justice Department, most of the profiles didn’t have more than a dozen followers, but what they have in common is, tried to impersonate real American citizens. Yes, one of the accounts allegedly is Susan Miller, who lives in New York. The other is Wisconsin native Julie Torres. According to the Ministry of Justice, China’s Ministry of Public Security monitored the work of agents involved in the operation and rewarded those who successfully managed multiple online identities without being detected by Twitter and Facebook.

In addition to persecuting Chinese dissidents, the group tried to discredit the US government using a recognizable Russian disinformation strategyexploits divisions among the American people. For example, he spread misinformation about black George Floyd, whose murder by Minneapolis police in 2020 sparked Black Lives Matter protests across the country. The group also increased Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine.

It is alleged that the Chinese government is using the national police and the “Special Project 912 Task Force” not as a tool to enforce the law and protect public safety, but rather as a troll farm that attacks people in our country for exercising their freedom of expression. The government of the PRC finds this inappropriate and also spreads propaganda whose sole purpose is to sow discord within the United States.
– said the American prosecutor Breon Peace.

According to the Justice Department, all 34 agents are still missing. This is not the first time the United States has detailed China’s efforts to persecute foreign dissidents. Late last year, US Attorney General Merrick Garland detailed a case involving a year-long campaign by Chinese agents to force a US resident to return to China.