FBI Aims to Build Chinese Goodwill
By Cooperating on Criminal Cases

David S Cloud / Wall Street Journal 4sep01

WASHINGTON -- When the Federal Bureau of Investigation went looking for accused swindler Qin Hong, the agency was doing a favor for some fellow investigators -- in China.

One of China's most-wanted fugitives, Mr. Qin (pronounced chin) had fled Shanghai in 1993 after allegedly cheating investors there out of hundreds of millions of dollars, and Chinese authorities had asked the FBI to help apprehend him. In April, Mr. Qin was arrested at New York's Kennedy Airport after arriving on a flight from Europe.

The case attracted little attention here but was an important milestone: It was the first arrest on U.S. soil that FBI officials recall making that resulted in a suspect being returned to China for prosecution. One reason it was done, these officials say, was to build goodwill with Chinese authorities in the hope they would reciprocate on cases important to the U.S.

How far the FBI should take cooperation remains a delicate issue. Its effort coincides with continuing complaints by Congress and the public about China's human-rights record. U.S.-China relations have been bumpy during President Bush's first year, not least due to China's law-enforcement practices. A sore point during recent months has been China's nabbing as alleged spies several U.S.-based academics.

As even the FBI acknowledges, honoring Chinese arrest warrants is dicey, given concerns that the underlying Chinese evidence won't meet U.S. standards. Worse, the FBI could find itself drawn into cases involving dissidents who fled China to escape persecution.

"There are important differences in principles and practices that make law-enforcement cooperation between us and the Chinese difficult," says Jerome Cohen, a New York University law professor who specializes in the Chinese legal system. "I'm in favor of cooperation, but it has to be consistent with our system and values." Mr. Cohen represented one of the Chinese-born scholars arrested for espionage in Beijing in April.

But FBI officials long have viewed good relations with Beijing as critical in fighting Asian criminal gangs, immigrant-smuggling and other international crime. Despite recent tensions, law-enforcement relations are flourishing after years of difficulty arising from such volatile cases as the Wen Ho Lee case and the 1996 allegations that China funneled contributions to President Clinton's re-election campaign.

"This is our chance. There's always going to be something that comes up to cause tension between the two countries. But we think the dust has settled enough now," said Thomas Fuentes, chief of the FBI's organized-crime section. Mr. Fuentes is traveling to China this week to discuss pending cases.

Officials say they are hopeful Beijing will give its assent soon to the FBI stationing an agent in the city, one of the few major capitals where the agency isn't represented. For now, the FBI covers China with two Mandarin-speaking FBI agents stationed in Hong Kong. Officials expect new FBI Director Robert Mueller to be more attuned to the need for better relations with China than his predecessor, Louis Freeh, who didn't visit Beijing; Mr. Mueller, as a federal prosecutor in San Francisco, prosecuted several Asian organized-crime cases.

The FBI routinely runs criminal-records checks on suspects China is seeking, but doesn't act unless a suspect is wanted for a U.S. violation. The biggest problem for cooperation, though, is the two countries have no extradition treaty, so there is no mechanism to send fugitives from one country to the other for prosecution. (The U.S. has an extradition arrangement with Hong Kong, in place before China took over the former British colony, that results in a handful of prisoner transfers every year.)

After Mr. Qin's arrest, the absence of a treaty almost dashed the FBI's hopes of returning him to mainland China. Beijing had supplied fingerprints and other documentary evidence that enabled the FBI to confirm Mr. Qin had entered the U.S. years before using a false identity, U.S. officials say. That made him subject to U.S. arrest and deportation. But because Mr. Qin had been carrying a Panamanian passport, a U.S. immigration judge sent him to Panama.

At this point, senior law-enforcement officials say the U.S. informally urged Panama to route Mr. Qin back to China. A court in Panama did so in May, after fining him $10,000 for carrying a fake passport. Chinese authorities plan to try Mr. Qin on multiple fraud charges. The Chinese news agency said he could face the death penalty.

U.S. officials wonder how much credit they will get with Beijing authorities for returning Mr. Qin when it was Panama that extradited him.

The answer could come soon. The FBI is pressing Beijing to turn over two Vietnamese, Siny Van Tran and Nam The Tham, who were arrested more than a year ago in China. Both are under indictment in Boston for allegedly committing the 1991 execution-style murders of five men in a social club in the city's Chinatown area.

The victims were killed with multiple gunshots to the back of their heads. A sixth victim in the early-morning massacre survived and helped police identify the two gunmen and another suspect, all of whom had ties to an Asian criminal gang, investigators say. U.S. authorities have been pursuing them since.

The big break in the case came during late 1999 when U.S. intelligence learned the suspects had surfaced in China, a U.S. official says. The FBI passed the tip to Chinese authorities. They picked up Mr. Tran, known as "Toothless Wah," in Dongxing on drug charges. Mr. Tham was taken into custody in Shenzhen, near Hong Kong. Fingerprints taken from the crime scene in Boston and provided to Chinese authorities matched those taken from the two suspects.

In March 2000, state and federal prosecutors in Boston held a news conference to announce the arrests. Since the suspects aren't Chinese citizens, the U.S. thought it would be easier politically for Beijing to turn them over for trial in Boston on the murder charges. But when U.S. officials asked, Chinese authorities stonewalled.

The Chinese replied, "We also have fugitives in the U.S. When can you arrest these fugitives?" says FBI agent William Liu, who was stationed in Hong Kong at the time.

Instead of dropping the matter, the FBI took a list of more than two dozen alleged fugitives that China claimed were living in the U.S. and began running checks on the names, officials say. This effort led to the arrest of Mr. Qin at Kennedy Airport.

Beijing seems inclined to reciprocate. U.S. officials say China is signaling that the two Boston murder suspects could be turned over as a goodwill gesture when President Bush goes to China next month.