Obama administration warns China about clandestine agents operating in the U.S.

President Obama.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Chinese officials have been warned by the Obama administration to bring home government agents participating in a program called Operation Fox Hunt, American sources say.

Through Operation Fox Hunt, Chinese law enforcement agents, operating under the Ministry of Public Security, are secretly hunting down and repatriating Chinese fugitives and attempting to recover allegedly ill-gotten gains, The New York Times reports. American officials say it's likely the agents are in the U.S. on tourist or trade visas, and are intimidating the suspects by making threats against their families in China. The Ministry of Public Security says that since 2014, more than 930 suspects have been repatriated, including 70 who came back on their own volition.

Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said that while the U.S. is "not a safe haven for fugitives from any nation," the U.S. does need evidence from China in order to offer assistance with tracking down fugitives, and too often "China has not provided the evidence we have requested."

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Catherine Garcia

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.