China and Iran use ‘sophisticated’ tactics to target political dissidents: FBI [Video]

• A series of cases brought by the Justice Department shows the consequences that geopolitical tensions can have for ordinary citizens.
• The practice of governments harassing dissenters is known as transnational repression, and U.S. officials say there’s been an alarming rise in cases.
• China denies that it engages in the practice.

After a participant in the historic Tiananmen Square protests entered a 2022 congressional race in New York City, a Chinese intelligence operative wasted little time enlisting a private investigator to hunt for any mistresses or tax problems that could upend the candidate’s bid, prosecutors say.

“In the end,” the operative ominously told his contact, “violence would be fine too.”

As an Iranian journalist and activist living in exile in the United States aired criticism of Iran’s human rights abuses, Tehran was listening too. Members of an Eastern European organized crime gang scouted her Brooklyn home and plotted to kill her in a murder-for-hire scheme directed from Iran, according to the …